Elbakyan
Why Science is Better with Communism The Case of Sci-Hub transcript and translation
2016
# Transcript and translation of Sci-Hub presentation
_The University of North Texas 's [Open Access Symposium
2016](/symposium/2016/) included [a presentation via Skype by Alexandra
Elbakyan](/symposium/2016/why-science-better-communism-case-sci-hub), the
founder of Sci-Hub. [Elbakyan's
slides](http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc850001/) (and those of
other presenters) have been archived in the UNT Digital Library, and [video of
this presentation](https://youtu.be/hr7v5FF5c8M) (and others) is now available
on YouTube and soon in the UNT Digital Library._
_The presentation was entitled "Why Science is Better with Communism? The Case
of Sci-Hub." Below is an edited transcript of the presentation produced by
Regina Anikina and Kevin Hawkins, with a translation by Kevin Hawkins and Anna
Pechenina._
**Martin Halbert** : We have a recent addition to our lineup of speakers that
we'll start off the day with: Alexandra Elbakyan. As many of you know,
Alexandra is a Kazakhstani graduate student, computer programmer, and the
creator of the controversial Sci-Hub site. The New York Times has compared her
to Edward Snowden for leaking information and because she avoids American law,
but Ars Technica has compared her to Aaron Swartz--so a controversial figure.
We thought it was very important to include her in the dialog about open
access because we want, in this symposium series, to include all the different
perspectives on copyright, intellectual property, open access, and access to
scholarly information. So I'm delighted that we're actually able to have her
here via Skype to present.
---
**Alexandra Elbakyan** : First of all, thank you for inviting me to share my
views. My name is Alexandra. As you might have guessed, I represent the site
Sci-Hub. It was founded in 2011 and immediately became popular among the local
community, almost immediately began providing access to about 40 articles an
hour and now providing more than 200,000.
It has to be said that over the course of the site's development it was
strongly supported by donations, and when for various reasons we had to
suspend the service, there were many displeased users who clamored for the
project to return so that the work in their laboratory could continue.
This is the case not just in poor countries; I can say that in rich countries
the public also doesn't have access to scholarly articles. And not all
universities have subscriptions to those resources that are required for
research.
A few of our users insisted that we start charging users, for example, by
allowing one or two articles to be downloaded for free but charging for more,
so that the service would be supported by those who really need it. But I
didn't end up doing that because the goal of the resource is knowledge for
all.
Certain open-access advocates criticize the site, saying that what we really
need is for articles to be in open access from the start, by changing the
business models of publishers. I can respond by saying that the goal of the
project is first and foremost the dissemination of scholarly knowledge in
society, and we have to work in the conditions we find ourselves in. Of
course, if scholarly publishers had a different business model, then perhaps
this project wouldn't be necessary. We can also imagine that if humans had
wings, we wouldn't need airplanes. But in any case we need to fly, so we make
airplanes.
Scholarly publishers quickly dubbed the work of Sci-Hub as piracy. Admittedly
Sci-Hub violates the laws of copyright, but copyright is related to the rights
of intellectual property. That is, scholarly articles are the property of
publishers, and reading them for free turns out to be something like theft
according to the current law.
The concept of intellectual property itself is not new, although it can seem
otherwise. The history of copyright goes back to around the 18th century,
although the first mentions of something similar can be found in the Talmud.
It's just that recently copyright has been found at the center of passionate
debate since some are trying to forbid the free distribution of information in
the internet.
However, the central focus of the debate is on censorship and privacy. The
defense of intellectual property in the internet requires censorship of
websites, and that is consequently a violation of freedom of speech. This also
raises a question of interference in private life - that is, when the
government in some way monitors users who violate copyright. In principle this
is also an intrusion in communication.
However, the very essence of copyright - that is, the concept of intellectual
property - is almost never questioned. That is, whether knowledge can be
someone's property is rarely discussed.
However, our ancestors were even more daring. They did not just question
intellectual property but property in general. That is, there are works in
which we can find the appearance of the idea of communism. There's Thomas
More's _Utopia_ from the 16th century, but actually such works arose much
earlier, even in Ancient Greece where these questions were already been
discussed in 391 BCE.
If we look at the slogans of communism, we see that one of the core concepts
is the struggle against inequality, the revolt of the suppressed classes,
whose members don't have any power against those who have concentrated basic
resources and power in their hands, with the goal of redistributing these
resources.
We can see that even today there is a certain informational inequality, when,
for example, only students and employees of the most wealthy universities have
full access to scholarly information, while access can be completely lacking
for institutions at the next lower tier and for the general public.
An idea arises: if there isn't private property, then there's no basis for
unequal distribution of wealth. In our case as well: if there's no private
intellectual property and all scholarly publications are nationalized, then
all people will have equal access to knowledge.
However, a question arises: if there is no private property, then what can
stimulate a person to work? One of the ideas is that under communism, rather
than greed or aspiration for wealth being a stimulus for work, a person would
aspire to self-development and learning for the betterment of the world.
Even if such values can't be applied to society as a whole, they at least work
in the world of scholarship. Therefore in the Soviet Union there was a true
cult of science - statues were even erected to the glory of science - and
perhaps thanks to this our country was one of the first to go into space.
However, it's one thing to have a revolution, when there's a mass
redistribution of property in society, but an act of theft is another thing.
This, of course, is not yet a revolution, but it's a small protest against the
property rights and the unequal distribution of wealth. Theft as protest has
always been welcomed and approved of in all eras of society. For example, we
all know about Robin Hood, but there have actually been quite a few noble
bandits in history. I've listed just a few of them.
I think that if the state works well, then accordingly it has a working tax
system and a certain system of redistribution of wealth, and then,
accordingly, there's no cause for revolution, for example. But if for some
reasons the state works poorly, then people begin to solve the problem for
themselves. In this way, Sci-Hub is an appropriate response to the inequality
that has arisen due to lack of access to information.
Pictured is Aldar Köse, a Kazakh folk hero who used his cunning to deceive
wealthy beys and take possession of their property. It's interesting to note
that beys are always depicted as greedy and stupid. And if you look at what's
written in the blogosphere today about scholarly publishers, you can find
these same characteristics.
There's also the interesting figure of the ancient Greek god Hermes, the
patron of thieves. That is, theft was a sufficiently respected activity that
it had its own god.
There's a researcher named Norman Brown who wrote an academic work called
_Hermes the Thief: The Evolution of a Myth_. It turns out that this myth is
related to a certain revolution in ancient Greek society, when the lower
classes, which lacked property, began to rise up.
For example, the poet Theognis of Megara wrote that "those who were nothing
became everything" and vice versa. This is essentially one of the most well-
known communist slogans.
For the ancient Greeks this was related, again as Brown says, to the
appearance of trade. Trade was identified with theft. There was no clear
distinction between the exchange of legal and illegal goods - that is, trade
was just as much considered theft as what we call piracy today.
Why did it turn out this way? Because Hermes was originally a god of
boundaries and transitions. Therefore, we can think that property is related
to keeping something within boundaries. At the same time, the things that
Hermes protected - theft, trade and communication - are related to boundary-
crossing.
If we think about scholarly journals, then any journal is first of all a means
of communication, and therefore it's apparent that keeping journals in closed
access contradicts the essence of what they were intended for.
This is, of course, not even the most interesting thing.
Hermes actually evolved - that is, while he was once an intellectual deity, he
later came to be interpreted as the same as Thoth, the Egyptian god of
knowledge, and further came to oversee such things as astrology, alchemy, and
magic - that is, the things from which, you might say, contemporary sciences
arose. So we can say that contemporary science arose from theft.
Of course, someone can object, saying that contemporary science is very
different from esoterica, such as astrology and alchemy, but if we look at the
history of science, we see that contemporary science differs from the ancient
arts in the former being more open.
That is, when the movement towards greater openness appeared, contemporary
science also appeared. Once again this is not an argument in support of
scholarly publishers.
Indeed, in the cultural consciousness science and the process of learning have
always been closely associated with theft, beginning with the legend of Adam
and Eve and the forbidden tree, which is called simply "the tree of
knowledge." And it's interesting that Elsevier's logo depicts some kind of
tree, which, accordingly, raises associations with this tree in the Garden of
Eden - the tree of knowledge - from which it was forbidden to eat the fruit.
Likewise we can recall the well-known legend of Prometheus, a part of our
cultural consciousness, who stole some knowledge and brought it to humans.
Once again we see the connection between science and theft.
Nowadays, many scholars have described science as the knowledge of secrets.
However, if we look closely, we have to ask: what is a secret? A secret is
something private, in essence private property. Accordingly, the disclosure of
the secret signifies that it ceases to be property. Once again we see the
contradiction between scholarship and property rights.
We can recall Robert Merton, who studied research institutes and revealed four
basic ethical norms that in his opinion are important for their successful
functioning. One of them is communism - that is, knowledge is shared.
Accordingly, if we look at certain traditional communities, then we find that
those communities that function within a caste system (dividing people by
occupation) usually turn out to have certain castes of people with
intellectual occupations, and if you look at the ethical norms of such castes,
you find that they are also communistic. You can find this, for example, in
Plato. Or even if you look at India, you find the accumulation of wealth is
usually the occupation of another caste.
To sum up, we have the following take-aways. Science, as a part of culture, is
in conflict with private property. Accordingly, scholarly communication is a
dual conflict. What open access is doing is returning science to its essential
roots.
**Audience question** : I'm a former university press director. I'd just like
to point out also that "property is theft" is the watchword of French
anarchism, a famous phrase from Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, so perhaps anarchism
and science are also inseparable. But my main question really has to do with a
challenge that a librarian named Rick Anderson posted on the Scholarly Kitchen
blog two days ago, and that has to do with the fact that evidently Sci-Hub
relies a lot on the access codes that faculty have given to Sci-Hub in one way
or another so that Sci-Hub can gain access to the electronic materials that it
then uses to post on its own site. What Anderson does is points out that if
that information falls into the wrong hands, there are all sorts of terrible
things that can be done because those access codes provide access to personal
information, to student data, to all sorts of other things that could be badly
misused, so my question to you is what assurances can you give us that that
kind of information will not fall into the wrong hands.
**Elbakyan** : Well, first of all I doubt that it's possible to gain access to
all the information that is listed in the post on the Scholarly Kitchen. As a
rule, these logins and passwords can only be used for access to the proxy
server through which you can download articles, whereas for access to other
things, such as email, the login and password won't work. [ _Audience reacts
with skepticism._ ]
**Audience question** : Earlier this week a number of us participated in a
panel presentation on scholarly publishing and social justice, and one of the
primary points that came out of that was that the people who create the
published product - not necessarily the scientist but the people who actually
do the work that results in the published product - deserve to be paid for
their labor, and there is definitely labor involved. So if you're replacing
the market for these publications and eliminating these people's opportunities
to make money, where is the appropriate distribution of wealth.
**Elbakyan** : First of all, we shouldn't confuse the compensation that a
person receives for their labor with the excessive profits that publishers
wring out by limiting access to information. For example, Sci-Hub also does a
fair amount of work and has high expenses, but these expenses are for some
reason covered by donations - that is, there's no need to close access to
information - that is, it's a red herring to say that if articles are
distributed for free, people won't have anything to eat. One does not follow
from the other. In my opinion, though, an optimal system for funding would
consist of grants, donations, and membership fees.
**Audience question** : You've spoken so far exclusively about Sci-Hub. I
wonder if you could comment just briefly on LibGen and whether you see the two
models as identical or whether there are any material differences between
LibGen and Sci-Hub.
**Elbakyan** : Well, LibGen is primarily a repository. It doesn't download
new articles but is more aimed at preserving that which has already been
downloaded.
Sollfrank & Mars
Public Library
2013
Marcell Mars
Public Library
Berlin, 1 February 2013
[00:13]
Public Library is the concept, the idea, to encourage people to become a
librarian, where a librarian is a person which can allow access to books – and
also which has a catalogue or index, so that it's searchable. [00:32] And the
person, the human being, can communicate, can talk with others who are
interested in that catalogue of books. [00:43] And then when you have a
librarian, and you have a lot of librarians, you have a Public Library,
because we have access to books, we have a catalogue, and we have a librarian.
That's the basic set up. [00:55] And in order to really work, in practice, we
need to introduce a set of tools which are easy to use, like Calibre, for
example, for book management. [01:07] And then also some part of that set up
should be also developed because at the moment, because of the configuration
of the routers, IP addresses and other things, it's not that easy to share
your local library which you have on your laptop with the world. [01:30] So we
also provide... When I say ‘we,’ it's a small team, at the moment, of
developers who try to address that problem. [01:38] We don't need to reinvent
the public library. It's invented, and it should be just maintained. [01:47]
The old-school public libraries – they are in decline because of many reasons.
And when it comes to the digital networks, the digital books, it's almost like
the worst position. [01:59] For example, public libraries in the US, they are
not allowed to buy digital books, for example from Penguin. So even when they
want to buy, it's not that they are getting them, it's that they can't buy the
books. [02:16] By the current legal regulation, it's considered as illegal – a
million of books, or even more, are unavailable, and I think that these books
should be really available. [02:29] And it doesn't really matter how it got on
Internet – did it come from a graphic designer who is preparing that for
print, or if it was uploaded somewhere from the author of the book (that is
also very common, especially in humanities), or if it was digitised anywhere.
[02:50] So these are the books which we have, and we can't be blinded, they
are here. The practice at the moment is almost like trying to find a
prostitute or something, so when you want to get a book online you need to get
onto the websites with advertisements for casinos, for porn and things like
that. [03:14] I don't think that the library should be like that.
[03:18]
Book Management
[03:22]
What we are trying to provide is just suggesting what kind of book management
software they can use, and also what kind of new software tools they can
install in order to easily get the messy directory into the directory of
metadata which Calibre can recognise – and then you can just use Calibre. The
next step is if you can share your local library with the world. [03:52] You
need something like a management software where it's easy to see who are the
authors, what the titles, publishers and all of the metadata – and it's
accessible from the outside.
[04:08]
Calibre
[04:12]
Calibre is a book management software. It's developed by Kovid Goyal, a
software developer. [04:22] It's a free software, open source, and it started
like many other free software projects. It started as a small tool to solve
very particular small problems. [04:31] But then, because it was useful, it
got more and more users, and then Kovid started to develop it more into a
proper, big book management software. At the moment it has more that 10
million registered users who are running that. [04:52] It does so many things
for book management. It's really ‘the’ software tool... If you have an
e-reader, for example, it recognises your e-reader, it registers it inside of
Calibre and then you can easily just transfer the books. [05:08] Also for
years there was a big problem of file formats. So for example, Amazon, in
order to keep their monopoly in that area, they wouldn't support EPUB or PDF.
And then if you got your book somewhere – if you bought it or just downloaded
from the Internet, you wouldn't be able to read it on your reader. [05:31]
Then Calibre was just developing the converter tools. And it was all in one
package, so that Calibre just became the tool for book management. [05:43] It
has a web server as a part of it. So in a local area network – if you just
start that web server and you are running a local area network, it can have a
read-only searchable access to your local library, to your books, and it can
search by any of these metadata.
[06:05]
Tools Around Calibre
[06:09]
I developed a software which I call Let's Share Books, which is super small
compared to Calibre. It just allows you, with one click, to get your library
shared on the Internet. [06:24] So that means that you get a public URL, which
says something like www some-number dot memoryoftheworld dot net, and that is
the temporary public URL. You can send it to anyone in the world. [06:37] And
while you are running your local web server and share books, it would just
serve these books to the Internet. [06:45] I also set up a web chat – kind of
a room where people can talk to each other, chat to each other. [06:54] So
it’s just, trying to develop tools around Calibre, which is mostly for one
person, for one librarian – to try to make some kind of ecosystem for a lot of
librarians where they can meet with their readers or among themselves, and
talk about the books which they love to read and share. [07:23] It’s mostly
like a social networking around the books, where we use the idea and tradition
of the public library. [07:37] In order to get there I needed to set up a
server which only does routing. So with my software I don’t know which books
are transferred, anything. It’s just like a router. [07:56] You can do that
also if you have control of your router, or what we usually call modem, so the
device which you use to get to the Internet. But that is quite hard to hack,
just hackers know how to do that. [08:13] So I just made a server on the
Internet which you can use with one click, and it just routes the traffic
between you, if you’re a librarian, and your users, readers. So that’s that
easy.
[08:33]
Librarians
[08:38] It’s super easy to become a librarian, and that is what we should
celebrate. It’s not that the only librarians which we have were the librarians
who were the only ones wanting to become a librarian. [08:54] So lots of
people want to be a librarian, and lots of people are librarians whenever they
have a chance. [09:00] So you would probably recommend me some books which you
like. I’ll recommend you some books which I like. So I think we should
celebrate that now it’s super easy that anyone can be a librarian. [09:11] And
of course, we will still need professional librarians in order to push forward
the whole field. But that goes, again, in collaboration with software
engineers, information architectes, whatever… [09:26] It’s so easy to have
that, and the benefits of that are so great, that there is no reason why not
to do that, I would say.
[09:38]
Functioning
[09:43]
If you want to share your collection then you need to install at the moment
Calibre, and Let’s Share Books software, which I wrote. But also you can – for
example, there is a Calibre plugin for Aaaaarg, so if you use Calibre… from
Calibre you can search Aaaaarg, you can download books from Aaaaarg, you can
also change the metadata and upload the metadata up to Aaaaarg.
[10:13]
Repositories
[10:17]
At the moment the biggest repository for the books, in order to download and
make your catalogue, is Library Genesis. It’s around 900,000 books. It’s
libgen.info, libgen.org. And it’s a great project. [10:33] It’s done by some
Russian hackers, who also allow anyone to download all of that. It’s 9
Terabytes of books, quite some chunk of hard disks which you need for that.
[10:47] And you can also download PHP, the back end of the website and the
MySQL database (a thumb of the MySQL database), so you can run your own
Library Genesis. That’s one of the ways how you can do that. [11:00] You can
also go and join Aaaaarg.org, where it is also not just about downloading
books and uploading books, it’s also about communication and interpretation of
making, different issues and catalogues. [11:14] It’s a community of book
lovers who like to share knowledge, and who add quite a lot of value around
the books by doing that. [11:26] And then there is… you can use Calibre and
Let’s Share Books. It’s just one of these complimentary tools. So it’s not
really that Calibre and Let’s Share Books is the only way how you can today
share books.
[11:45]
Goal
[11:50]
What we do also has a non-hidden agenda for fighting for the public library. I
would say that most of the people we know, even the authors, they all
participate in the huge, massive Public Library – which we don’t call Public
Library, but usually just trying to hide that we are using that because we are
afraid of the restrictive regime. [12:20] So I don’t see a reason why we
should shut down such a great idea and great implementation – a great resource
which we have all around the world. [12:30] So it’s just an attempt to map all
of these projects and to try to improve them. Because, in order to get it into
the right shape, we need to improve the metadata. [12:47] Open Library, a
project which started also with Aaron Swartz, has 20 millions items, and we
use it. There is a basedata.org which connects the hash files, the MD5 hashes,
with the Open Library ID. And we try to contribute to Open Library as much as
possible. [13:10] So with very few people, around 5 people, we can improve it
so much that it will be for a billion of users a great Public Library, and at
the same time we can have millions of librarians, which we never had before.
So that’s the idea. [13:35] The goal is just to keep the Public Library. If we
didn’t screw up the whole situation with the Public Library, probably we’d
just try to add a little bit of new software, and new ways that we can read
the books. [13:53] But at the moment [it’s] super important actually to keep
this infrastructure running, because this super important infrastructure for
the access to knowledge is now under huge threat.
[14:09]
Copyright
[14:13]
I just think that it’s completely inappropriate – that copyright law is
completely inappropriate for the Public Library. I don’t know about other
cases, but in terms of Public Library it’s absolutely inappropriate. [14:29]
We should find the new ways of how to reward the ones who are adding value to
sharing knowledge. First authors, then anyone who is involved in public
libraries, like librarians, software engineers – so everyone who is involved
in that ecosystem should be rewarded, because it’s a great thing, it’s a
benefit for the society. [15:03] If this kind of things happens, so if the law
which regulates this blocks and doesn’t let that field blossom, it’s something
wrong with that law. [15:16] It’s getting worse and worse, so I don’t know for
how long we should wait, because while we’re waiting it’s getting worse.
[15:24] I don’t care. And I think that I can say that because I’m an artist.
Because all of these laws are made saying that they are representing art, they
are representing the interest of artists. I’m an artist. They don’t really
represent my interests. [15:46] I think that it should be taken over by the
artists. And if there are some artists who disagree – great, let’s have a
discussion.
[15:58]
Civil Disobedience
[16:03]
In the possibilities of civil disobedience – which are done also by
institutions, not just by individuals – and I think that in such clear cases
like the Public Library it’s easy. [16:17] So I think that what I did in this
particular case is nothing really super smart – it’s just reducing this huge
issue to something which is comprehensible, which is understandable for most
of the people. [16:31] There is no one really who doesn’t understand what
public library is. And if you say to anyone in the world, saying, like hey, no
more public libraries, hey, no books anymore, no books for the poor people. We
are just giving up on something which we almost consensually accepted through
the whole world. [16:55] And I think that in such clear cases, I’m really
interested [in] what institutions could do, like Transmediale. I’m now in
[Akademie] Schloss Solitude, I also proposed to make a server with a Public
Library. If you invest enough it’s a million of books, it’s a great library.
[17:16] And of course they are scared. And I think that the system will never
really move if people are not brave. [17:26] I’m not really trying to
encourage people to do something where no one could really understand, you
know, and you need expertise or whatever. [17:37] In my opinion this is the
big case. And if Transmediale or any other art institution is playing with
that, and showing that – let’s see how far away we can support this kind of
things. [17:56] The other issue which I am really interested in is what is the
infrastructure, who is running the infrastructures, and what kind of
infrastructures are happen in between these supposedly avant-garde
institutions, or something. [08:12] So I’m really interested in raising these
issues.
[18:17]
Art Project
[18:21]
Public Library is also an art project where… I would say that just in the same
way that corporations, by their legal status, can really kind of mess around
with different… they can’t be that much accountable and responsible – I think
that this is the counterpart. [18:44] So civil disobedience can use art just
the same way that corporations can use their legal status. [18:51] When I was
invited as a curator and artist to curate the HAIP Festival in Ljubljana, I
was already quite into the topic of sharing access to knowledge. And then I
came up with this idea and everybody liked it and everybody was enthusiastic.
It's one of these ideas where you can see that it’s great, there is no one
really who would oppose to that. [19:28] At the same time there was an
exhibition, Dear Art, curated by WHW, quite established curators. And then it
immediately became an art piece for that exhibition. Then I was invited here
to Transmediale, and have a couple of other invitations. [19:45] I think that
it also shows that art institutions are accepting that, they play with that
idea. And I think that this kind of projects – by having that acceptance it
becomes the issue, it becomes the problem of the whole arts establishment.
[20:10] So I think that if I do this in this way, and if there is a curator
who invites this kind of projects – so who invites Public Library into their
exhibition – it’s also showing their kind of readiness to fight for that
issue. [20:27] And if there are a number of art festivals, a number of art
exhibitions, who are supporting this kind of, lets say, civil disobedience,
that also shows something. [20:38] And I think that that kind of context
should be pushed into the confrontation, so it’s not anymore just playing “oh,
is it is ok, it is not? We should deal with all the complexity…” [20:57] There
is no real complexity here. That complexity is somewhere else, and in some
other step we should take care of that. But this is an art piece, it’s a well
established art piece. [21:11] If you make a Public Library, I'm fine, I’m
sacrificing for taking the responsibility. But you shouldn't melt down that
art piece, I think. [21:26] And I feel super stupid that such a simple concept
should be, in 2013, articulated to whom? In many ways it’s like playing dummy,
I play dummy. It’s like, why should I? [21:50] When we started to play in
Ljubljana like software developers we came up with so many great ideas of how
to use those resources. So it was immediately… just after couple of hours we
had tools – visualisations of that, a reader of Wikipedia which can embed any
page which is referred, as a reference, a quote. [22:17] It was immediately
obvious for anyone there and for anyone from the outside what a huge resource
is having a Public Library like that – and what’s the huge harm that we don’t
have it. [22:32] But still we need to play dummy, I need to play the artist’s
role, you know.