Court orders pirate science site to shut down
The US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has ruled in favor of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in its fight against Sci-Hub, a pirate site for scientific papers. The court has issued a default judgment that grants all of the ACS’ requests, which includes monetary damages, an injunction that requires search engines, registrars, and hosting providers to block access to Sci-Hub, and a decree that Sci-Hub can no longer sell or promote any works registered to the ACS.
The case was originally brought against Sci-Hub in June. It was expected that the ACS would win, given that Alexandra Elbakyan, the site’s publisher, entered no defense, but the court’s decision to enforce blocked internet access to the site was a surprise…