How India Could Strike A Blow For The Global Scientific Community

"The question the Indian authorities must now ask is whether to protect their scientists who use Sci-Hub or the interests of foreign publishers who have created a business model that treats knowledge (often funded by taxpayers) as private property and who profit by imposing abusive prices on its universities and research centers. In short, is there any link between scientific output and these publishers’ profits?

More and more universities and academic institutions, faced with the greed of these publishers, are leaning towards open-access models to disseminate their output. Several decades ago, in the field of public health, the Indian government’s decision to favor the use of generic medicines challenged Big Pharma. For a country like India, its courts’ decision over Sci-Hub will be critical, and, given the importance of science to the country’s competitiveness, it is far from given that they will automatically back the plaintiffs...."