The impact of Sci-Hub continues to be realized as copyrights and Creative Commons issues play out in the real world. The Scholarly Kitchen brought us this interesting information in their article, “Copyright, Expectations, and Economics — Can Taylor Swift Help Us Find Our Backbone?”

Sci-Hub’s founder supposed that she was reacting to a poorly managed economic situation in academia and improving the access of valuable information would be a benefit. Others did not see it that way. In fact it was mostly referred to as the theft and posting of millions of scholarly articles and books after filching an unknown number of academic login credentials.

It is not just publishers that face these challenges. Writers, artists, technologists, and editors are losing work as well. Everyone putting their work out in the creative market is being affected. Some are just fighting back better than others. Maybe the Sci-Hub situation will inspire publishers and writers to fight for and protect their information.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.