Sci-Hub#
Links and Mirrors:#
- sci-hub.st (Paused the uploading of papers)
- sci-hub.ru (Paused the uploading of papers)
Summary:#
The first pirate website in the world to provide mass and public access to tens of millions of research papers. At this time the widest possible distribution of research papers, as well as of other scientific or educational sources, is artificially restricted by copyright laws. Such laws effectively slow down the development of science in human society. The Sci-Hub project, running from 5th September 2011, is challenging the status quo. At the moment, Sci-Hub provides access to hundreds of thousands research papers every day, effectively bypassing any paywalls and restrictions.
Sci-Hub was founded by Alexandra Elbakyan in 2011 in Kazakhstan in response to the high cost of research papers behind paywalls. The site is extensively used worldwide. In September 2019, the site’s owners said that it served approximately 400,000 requests per day. The number of articles claimed is frequently updated on the site’s home page, being over 81 million in April 2020. Sci-Hub and Elbakyan were sued twice for copyright infringement in the United States in 2015 and 2017, and lost both cases by default, leading to loss of some of its Internet domain names. The site has cycled through different domain names since then.
Alternatives#
Anna’s Archive SciDB
SciDB is a continuation of Sci-Hub, with its familiar interface and direct viewing of PDFs.Sci-Net
Sci-Net is a community of students, researchers and people interested in science who work together towards a common goal: creating a openly accessible database of scientific knowledge.