Last month, Delhi’s high court issued a major verdict by prohibiting Sci-Hub, its related websites, and Sci-Net for distributing articles from journal publishers without permission. The court mandated India’s telecommunications ministry to restrict access to these sites within 72 hours, following a copyright infringement suit filed in 2020 by Elsevier, Wiley, and the American Chemical Society against Sci-Hub and LibGen.
This ruling particularly impacts Indian researchers and students who depended on Sci-Hub for accessing scientific literature, as the platform was vital for many, with over 13 million download requests originating from India in 2021. Researchers at smaller institutions, often lacking extensive journal subscriptions, now encounter considerable obstacles due to the ban. Although the Indian government has launched the One Nation, One Subscription (ONOS) initiative to tackle some of the access issues by providing government-funded institutions access to around 13,000 journals, numerous private institutions still remain unable to take advantage of this program.
Shalini Sanyal, a postdoctoral researcher, voiced her worries that the Sci-Hub prohibition could severely limit research capabilities at smaller institutions that cannot afford necessary journal subscriptions. The new ONOS program, backed with INR60 billion for its first phase, benefits central and state government higher education institutions, but excludes several private entities lacking these resources.
Arul George Scaria, a legal expert, highlights that measures such as the Sci-Hub ban should consider wider social and economic circumstances. He contends that the prohibition, mostly based on instances of online movie piracy, may be inappropriate for academic work, which generally operates under different motivations than other creative sectors. He underscores the need for court proceedings that weigh public interest and could have led to an alternative resolution.
Subhajit Hazra, another researcher, recognizes the importance of fighting piracy but stresses that publishing companies must take into account the needs of talented researchers who lack financial resources. He advocates for waivers or complimentary downloads for researchers’ own works to guarantee they can obtain essential literature. Hazra also points out that access challenges can drive researchers towards predatory journals, which take advantage of these difficult situations.