Statement on Libgen/Sci-Hub Complaint | AAP

"Sci-Hub illegally accesses the secure computer networks of a large number of major universities by, among other methods, hijacking “proxy” credentials used to facilitate off campus remote access to university computer systems and databases.  Sci-Hub uses these broad intrusions to gain unauthorized access to the scientific databases to which universities subscribe, illegally harvest articles and books and simultaneously make copies of the content available at libgen.org and numerous “mirror” sites.  Sci-Hub and Libgen have built vast repositories of illegally obtained content that they use to fulfill requests for articles and books, thus becoming a massive illegal competing source for copyrighted content.  The repositories already hold 40 million articles and over a million books, all of which are also being made available through one or more of Libgen’s multiple active mirror sites, including libgen.info, bookfi.org, bookzz.org, bookre.org and booksc.org.  One of the admitted operators of these sites was quoted as saying 'its main goal is to provide the less privileged with access to science and knowledge.' According to industry statistics, China and Russia, major markets for scientific materials, were in fact the top two sources of traffic to Sci-Hub in June 2015 ..."