Or, god forbid, creating value that isn't available elsewhere. You know... competition.
Why use netflix, when you can get TV Shows/Movies for free? Why use Pandora/Spotify when you can get music for free? Why use Steam when you can get games for free? Dropbox? Microsoft Office?
Because those service(s)/product(s) offer something that the free version(s) doesn't...
If Elsavior is losing customers because of Sci-Hub, they need to look at why they are losing customers... and what they can do to get them back... or if they can (maybe other countries where their services aren't available).
This issue of geographically dividing markets doesn't make any sense for products that are essentially information products that are distributed by the Internet.
Measures like geoblocking just drive people in markets who are blocked from accessing content, or who are charged higher prices, to just pirate the material. Or alternatively they bypass the geoblocks.
Even now people are starting to ignore the various mechanisms used to bypass geoblocks as its getting harder to achieve, but before publishers start congratulating themselves they should consider that those people who bypassed their geoblocks were willing to pay what they consider a far price for that content. The fact is, in most cases they bypass the geoblocks because the pricing is not fair.
I'm not sure these publishers can legitimately claim how unfair it is that people steal their content when they are literally discriminating against people by charging them higher prices based on their nationality.
There may be an ethical weight you can assign to stealing and a lower ethical weight you can assign to price gouging, but they are both unethical.
I often find it interesting when I bring up the fact that there is a fundamental unfairness to geoblocking that people immediately chime in to state that stealing is wrong, but they don't consider that a case can also be made that price gouging is really a form of theft of a consumers limited resources.
Geoblocking goes beyond simple greed... different countries have different laws, supply, demand, etc. Some countries may outlaw certain things. Others may have a much lower amount of money per person/family/gdp.
While I agree on the base level (Why should county a pay more than country b... like Australia routinely pays more for software), just saying "it's not fair" or "its unethical" is too simplistic.
The problem with this is that currently, as best as anyone knows, Sci-hub works via proxying using legitimate logins. At a University level, usually there is some server running that acts as a proxy so that students and instructors on the campus can access (all calls get proxied), or students can access off campus using their federated student logins, which then creates a quick web-proxy.
Since it's just a login/access to proxied logins, Sci-hub has a third option which they will most definitely double-down on: try to "fix" the log in problem they have.
As important as I do think piracy is for situations just like this, the problem with trying to understand piracy in a market environment is that piracy doesn't really follow the same rules as other market elements. While there may be some economic value to pirates, for the most part, they can compete on cost and free of the trappings of business deals. They don't have to worry about making a profit, and as such are not influenced by the responses from other elements, such as those they're pirating from.
This isn't "oh woe to the publishers"; I do think they've been bending us over forever. But to expect them to respond to piracy as they would another business is unrealistic in my mind, especially when they can just regulate and sue their way to their goals.
What hopefully happens as a result of Sci-hub is that it will change the way that researchers and their institutions look towards paper publication in the future, once they realize that there's no longer a need for Elsevier and its kin. That is change I hope happens. But to expect Elsevier et. al. to do anything but try to return to their status quo is kind of absurd.
While I agree on some of the major points - the business will try to maintain status quo especially and reacting to pirates is different than reacting to businesses - I think that, as someone on the outside without a big care either way, this can't help be have the same issues as IAA vs Pirates.
At the end of the days, now that the IAA has moved towards models that meet the needs that were unmet years ago (streaming, large catalogs at high fidelity, etc) they are able to gasp make money again. They were afraid to leave the "old media" but once forced (kicking and screaming every step of the way) they were able to realize new ways that met demands. People pay for music again.
Not all things are the same between the two (Academic papers and Music/MP3s) obviously, but the fact is Elsevier can only stick to the "old way" at it's own peril. Closing "Napster" didn't solve it - in fact it just created a whack-a-mole game. Attacking Sci-Hub won't solve the problem that Elsavier obviously isn't meeting market needs in an ever changing technology landscape.
>for the most part, they can compete on cost and free of the trappings of business deals.
Pirate sites are usually also run by small teams, don't have dedicated user interface experts, can't easily offer apps, etc. Users are willing to pay for convienience, there's lots of room for big companies to be competitive with pirates.
And yet, according to the article about 15% of SciHub users use SciHub because it's more convienient to use than the alternatives. If the pirates are cheaper and have the better user experience, why would anybody not use the pirate platform?
Of course building a product that's competitive with pirate offers doesn't prevent you from legally challenging them. A war can be fought on multiple fronts at once.
Elsevier does not control the product (because they are not making it). They leech off the rents that they gained decades ago. There is no future for them.
