The story of Sci-Hub presents a good opportunity to review the gross anatomy of scholarly publishing. Those of us in academia, whether we are faculty or support them, know that it is the researchers who investigate, write, and review academic research papers. We know that they do this for free. We know that publishers package these products and charge exorbitant prices for them. And we know that libraries pay these prices for access. Those who are lucky enough to be affiliated with a research library can access much of this content. However, those who lack affiliation (or who have the nerve to look up research without scientific credentials) are locked out and must pay for access article by article. This model doesn’t make much sense—particularly when you consider that the taxpayers are the ones who put up much of the money to fund research—but it is the model that has been in place for a very long time. It is the wheel that moves science forward, and it is hugely profitable to publishers.

Sci-Hub has effectively put a spoke in the wheel of traditional scholarly publishing by making 47 million copyright protected research articles freely available to anyone with an internet connection. The catch, it does so without the consent of the copyright holders of those works. Further, Sci-Hub uses individual researchers’ institutional credentials (donated or otherwise acquired) to download these works and build its library.

Much has been written about Sci-Hub in the past six weeks (see for example this and this and this and this), and much of it is as polarized as the sentiment around Open Access itself. There are those who condemn Alexandra Elbakyan and her site for surreptitiously obtaining and illegally posting copyrighted content. Elsevier is first among these, having waged a successful copyright infringement lawsuit against her and shutting down SciHub’s American domain last fall. Others are quite complimentary of Alexandra Elbakyan, classing her with Aaron Schwartz and dubbing her a Robin Hood of paywalled research. The best and most conscientious example of these is Mike Taylor’s personal journey toward an endorsement of Sci-Hub in seven parts (See parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7).

As a scholarly communication librarian and a participant in and advocate for the Open Access movement, I have been struggling with how to respond to Sci-Hub. I want to see restrictions against access to research removed and joyfully point to the free flow of scholarship; I have spent hours interpreting journal policies and publication agreements to make sure that people ‘do the right thing’; I have collected and reiterated facts, studies, and arguments in support of Open Access; I have and continue to promote Open Access as a good and just thing. So for me, the appeal of immediate and unrestricted access to these 47 million research papers is dampened by the means. Peter Suber sagely sums up the problem when he writes:

“Sci-Hub leaves the false impression that OA requires copyright infringement, or that OA must be unlawful. But OA is as lawful as conventional publishing…. Giving support to the false impression that OA requires infringement misleads people about these facts, especially newcomers not familiar with the many kinds of lawful OA.”

I believe in Open Access and want to see it work. I welcome the increased focus on Open Access in the news as a result of the Sci-Hub story. But the Open Access movement—like any movement—requires deliberate and conscious actions. Simply downloading illegally posted content won’t change the scholarly publishing paradigm, broken as it is. Yes, Sci-Hub makes research available. But Sci-Hub does not give researchers the opportunity to make deliberate choices about where they publish or help them advocate for their rights over their own intellectual property. Sci-Hub just provides one more way for people to avoid understanding how and why Open Access can and should work.