[Marxism] Fwd: Meet the Robin Hood of Science | Big Think

[Louis Proyect]

On September 5th, 2011, Alexandra Elbakyan, a researcher from 
Kazakhstan, created Sci-Hub, a website that bypasses journal paywalls, 
illegally providing access to nearly every scientific paper ever 
published immediately to anyone who wants it. The website works in two 
stages, firstly by attempting to download a copy from the LibGen 
database of pirated content, which opened its doors to academic papers 
in 2012 and now contains over 48 million scientific papers. The 
ingenious part of the system is that if LibGen does not already have a 
copy of the paper, Sci-hub bypasses the journal paywall in real time by 
using access keys donated by academics lucky enough to study at 
institutions with an adequate range of subscriptions. This allows 
Sci-Hub to route the user straight to the paper through publishers such 
as JSTOR, Springer, Sage, and Elsevier. After delivering the paper to 
the user within seconds, Sci-Hub donates a copy of the paper to LibGen 
for good measure, where it will be stored forever, accessible by 
everyone and anyone.

http://bigthink.com/neurobonkers/a-pirate-bay-for-science