[Infowarrior] - How Piracy Became a Cause Celebre in the World of Academics

[Richard Forno]

How Piracy Became a Cause Celebre in the World of Academics

Written by Liam O'Donoghue

In October 2008, two of the big names in academic publishing, Elsevier and Thieme, celebrated victory against an "international piracy scheme involving the unlawful copying, sale, and distribution of scientific journals.”

In the defeated scheme, a Vietnamese entrepreneur had used throwaway email accounts to pose as a salesman. He contacted academics, offering discounted access to subscription journals. The unsuspecting marks made payment through fake websites that mimicked the publishers’, and received paper printouts of the journals in the mail.

Now, another international piracy scheme commands the attention of Elsevier—but this one looks more like a Silicon Valley startup than a black market...

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http://motherboard.vice.com/read/academic-piracy-elsevier-sci-hub


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It's better to burn out than fade away.