Pic from here
In a great start to the Sci-Hub litigation (Elsevier, Wiley, and ACS vs Sci-Hub, LibGen – for background context, see the bottom of this post), Justice Midha at the Delhi High Court repeatedly pointed out that the issues in this case involved ‘a matter of public importance’, while saying he would not want to pass any orders in the law suit without hearing the various parties that wanted to get their views heard in the case, for the interim application as well as the suit. The publishers had asked for a blocking order to be passed today, against the ‘rogue websites’ citing the self-proclaimed ‘pirate’ nature of these websites, and that certain other jurisdictions had also passed these orders. For clarity – these jurisdictions are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Spain and Sweden. Regardless of those jurisdiction’s fair dealing exception, a central question in this case will no doubt be to determine whether this falls within India’s very explicit and arguably expansive research exception, along the lines of Nikhil’s earlier arguments (here onwards)– so it seems a positive step that those reasons were not taken as sufficient to throw in a quick blocking injunction.
The Delhi Science Forum, and the Knowledge Commons, represented through Rohit Sharma, had filed an intervention application, and a group of various scientists, represented through Jawahar Raja had filed an impleadment application. The court therefore declined the plea for blocking the said websites today and ordered for the pleadings to be completed within the next 6 weeks, listing the matter for hearing after six weeks. The proceedings today otherwise mostly contained procedural and formal compliance issues, for which Sci-Hub received an extension of 2 weeks to fulfil, as well as the liberty to move an application for exemption from formal compliances, due to the peculiar nature of this case and Alexandra Elbakyan of Sci-Hub currently being in Russia. Senior counsel Gopal Sankaranarayan appeared on behalf of Sci-Hub, and senior counsel Amit Sibal appeared on behalf of the publishers.
As far as the interim direction of Sci-Hub not uploading any new articles on its platform is concerned, the same was extended until the next date of hearing. However, the plaintiffs’ plea to extend the same direction on Libgen as well, was rejected. The same was rejected on the ground that Libgen had not yet been served by the Plaintiffs effectively, as per the service report. Therefore, in the status quo, no interim direction is applicable against Libgen.
Those interested can also check LiveLaw’s short tweet thread on the proceedings here. Our previous posts on this case can be seen here.
(Background context, as reproduced from Nikhil’s earlier post: Recently, three major academic publishers Elsevier, Wiley, and American Chemical Society filed a copyright infringement suit in the Delhi High Court against two groups of websites going by the names ‘Sci-Hub’ and ‘Libgen’ which provide free access to millions of research papers/books. The plaintiffs have sought a permanent injunction against these websites and a dynamic injunction order so that the mirror links of these websites can be blocked as and when the plaintiffs notify. Additionally, the plaintiffs have sought an interim injunction against the defendants.)