Twitter suspends Sci-Hub account amid court case in Delhi

New Delhi, Jan 9 (IANS) Micro-blogging platform Twitter has suspended the account of Sci-Hub, a portal that provides free access to paywalled academic papers, as a case against the website is currently going on in the Delhi High Court.Academic publishers Elsevier, Wiley, and the American Chemical Society filed a suit with the Delhi High Court in December last year, asking internet service providers to block Sci-Hub and another similar site LibGen.According to a report in The Verge, the court then rejected the publishers' requests that the sites be blocked immediately, instead declaring it an "issue of public importance a very important to the scientific community".Delhi Science Forum, Society for Knowledge Commons and a group of 20 scientists and scholars filed the application, saying that blocking such websites, which provide free access to research, will deprive scientific researchers in poor and developing countries.Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan used Twitter account to gather and archive responses from Indian researchers, "who argued that Sci-Hub is critical to their work".Elbakyan was quoted as saying in a report on TorrentFreak that the Twitter suspension "happened right after Indian scientists revolted against Elsevier and other academic publishers after Sci-Hub posted on Twitter about the danger of being blocked".Twitter was yet to react to the report.Publishers went to the court against Sci-Hub as their content was being distributed for free, arguing that the website infringes on their copyright.According to The Verge, Elsevier charges readers an average of $31.50 per paper for access while Sci-Hub and LibGen offered them for free.
--IANS na/pgh