According to a recent report by the Washington Post, the US Department of Justice has launched an investigation into the creator of Sci-Hub, Alexandra Elbakyan.
Ms. Alexandra Elbakyan was born in Kazakhstan in 1988 and received a bachelor's degree in computer science from a local university. She founded Sci-Hub in 2011 to provide free reading and downloading of academic papers. The slogan of her website is "Remove obstacles on the road to science". Normally, non-OA academic papers are only available through paid subscription. Therefore, Al Bakoyan's supporters praise her as the "Robin Hood of science" (Robin Hood of science).
Al Bakoyan’s work has always been the subject of legal and moral controversy. In 2016, she told Science magazine: “The journal pay zone is a reverse operation, which makes scientific communication less open and efficient.” In December 2016, Nature Publishing Group ranked Al Bakoyan as the top 10 One of the people who influenced science (10 people who most mattered in science). According to the 2017 download data provided by El Bakoyan, from January to December 2017, there were about 150 million downloads, meaning that the average daily download volume exceeded 400,000. Due to the rapid expansion of its site scale and influence, it has effectively affected the intellectual property rights and economic interests of many publishers. Soon in 2017, the New York District Court ruled that Elba Koyan infringed the publisher Elsevier, and made harsh decisions. In compensation of 15 million U.S. dollars. Since then, Al Bakoyan has started to live low-key.
A former senior U.S. intelligence official said he believes Al Bakoyan is cooperating with the Russian military intelligence agency GRU, which stole emails from the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, and then in 2016 It is provided to WikiLeaks. Albakyan denied that he had worked for the Russian intelligence service, but said he was not surprised that the US authorities investigated him.
Although the US Department of Justice has initiated an investigation into Sci-Hub, in some other countries, such as Switzerland, Sci-Hub can be used legally. After the Swiss University Confederation announced the suspension of Springer Nature, although Springer Nature publicly stated that it would not close Switzerland's visit for the time being, the Q&A issued by the Swiss University Confederation stated that Switzerland allows the use of "Sci-Hub". If
sorts Sci-Hub's 2017 download data by country, the top ten countries are:
Source:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1158301
Reference material:
https:// www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/justice-department-investigates-sci-hub-founder-on-suspicion-of-working-for-russian-intelligence/2019/12/19/9dbcb6e6-2277-11ea-a153- dce4b94e4249_story.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2013/12/19/how-one-publisher-is-stopping-academics-from-sharing-their-research/?tid=lk_inline_manual_13
https ://www.swissuniversities.ch/fileadmin/swissuniversities/Dokumente/Hochschulpolitik/Open_Access/Verhandlungen_FAQ_D.pdf
"Nature s 10". Nature. 540 (7634): 507–515. 2016-12-22. Bibcode:2016Natur.540..507.. doi:10.1038/540507a. PMID 30905952.
