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by Aaron Schwartz

by Aaron Schwartz

by Aaron Schwartz, 2011

by Aaron Schwartz

by Aaron Schwartz, 2011

by Aaron Schwartz

by Aaron Schwartz

by Aaron Schwartz

by Aaron Schwartz

by Aaron Schwartz

by Aaron Schwartz

by Aaron Schwartz

by Aaron Schwartz

by Aaron Schwartz

July 25, 2016

Roman Kochan Dean of Library Services University Library California State University 1250 Bellflower Boulevard Long Beach, California 90840-1901

Dear Dean Kochan,

-·; .. ·

ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN PUBL SHERS

I am disappointed to learn that a librarian from California State University, Long Beach, Gabriel Gardner, recently praised the notorious pirate site Sci-Hub and recommended that attendees at a session use the site. Mr. Gardper was a panelist at the American Library Association's session "Resource Sharing in Tomorrowland - a Panel Discussion About the Future ofinterlibrary Loan" at the association's annual conference in Orlando. On the panel he said, essentially, "Try it, you'll like it."

Sci-Hub has been enjoined from further operation as an unlawful enterprise that has committed mass theft of copyrighted material. Sci-Hub should not be equated with any legitimate interlibrary loan or open access publishing practices.

Sci-Hub's methods are not benign; they include illegally accessing the secure computer networks of a large number of major universities by, among other methods, hijacking "proxy" credentials used to facilitate off-campus remote access to university computer systems and databases. The techniques employed by it to defeat security standards are similar to those employed by other cyber intrusions. These intrusions compromise the security of colleges, universities, hospitals, database owners and individuals' personal computers, because Sci-Hub could not only access scientific databases but potentially gain access to proprietary and confidential information of researchers, staff and students at compromised universities.

As a member of the California State University system it is surprising that a CSU Long Beach librarian would promote the activities of an adjudicated thief who has compromised university computer systems and databases worldwide.

Unfortunately, Sci-Hub supporters invoke academic freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of scientific inquiry, and encouraging universal access to the results of scientific research to justify the theft of intellectual property. Such rationalizations do not in my opinion justify providing public encouragement for unquestionably illegal activity to institutions and the scholarly communication system. I believe such public encouragement from one of your librarians is inconsistent with the university library's mission and its leadership in support of scientific research.

Sincerely,

THOMAS H. ALLEN PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

455 MASSACHUSETTS AVE NW, SUITE 700 WASHINGTON, DC 20001 PHONE {202) 347-3375 WWW.PUBLISHERS.ORG 71 FIFTH AVE, 2ND FLOOR NEW YORK, NY 10003 PHONE {212} 255-0200 WWW.PUBLISHERS.ORG

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Aug. 1,2016

Thomas H. Allen President and Chief Executive Officer Association of American Publishers 455 Massachusetts Ave. NW Suite 700 Washington, D.C. 20001

Dear Mr. Allen,

UN I VERSITY LI BRA RY

Thank you for your letter regarding Mr. Gardner, but I believe your strident criticism of him is based on some fundamental factual inaccuracies. Gabriel Gardner, a faculty member at California State University Long Beach, along with his co-author Carolyn Caffrey Gardner, a faculty member at California State University Dominguez Hills, were on an American Library Association (ALA) panel on the future of interlibrary loan in June because of their research that was published in a 2016 article in College & Research Libraries, a major-and open access-journal in the field of library science. Their article, "Fast and Furious (at Publishers): The Motivations behind Crowdsourced Research Sharing," is based on a survey of users of peer-to-peer research-sharing services on the frequency of, and the motivations behind, their use of these services. They conclude that these services "go beyond document delivery to the legal bedrock that is our current copyright and intellectual property systems." So, contrary to your allegations that the researchers provided "public encouragement" of services such as Sci-Hub, their research points out the very real problems with this type of crowdsourcing.

To be clear, neither Mr. Gardner, the University Library, nor the University promote or condone illegal activity, particularly copyright violation . Instead, Mr. Gardner' s research points out problems faced by libraries, researchers, and publishers and how some researchers are enabling websites such as Sci-Hub to circumvent the measures taken by libraries to uphold their copyright licenses. Freedom of research is fundamental to academia and to your industry. As you say on your website, AAP "invest[s] in the ideas and careers of our authors and scholars, providing support and protecting their rights, so they can share their unique perspectives with the world." That is exactly what Mr. Gardner was, and is, doing with his research, which the university wholeheartedly endorses.

Besides the legal cautions in the C&RL article, Mr. Gardner has been quoted on #icanhazPDF, and in the 2015 Conference Proceedings of the Association of College & Research Libraries as saying that such peer-to-peer sharing is "ethically dubious" and "often violate[s) commercial database terms-of-service (ToS) and/ or copyright." Specifically, regarding the ALA annual conference panel, " Resource Sharing in Tomorrowland a Panel Discussion about the Future of Interlibrary Loan," your paraphrase of Mr. Gardner's statements is taken very much out of context. If you listen to the recording of his presentation, he says that Sci-Hub's actions are " massive piracy" and " totally illegal." To an audience of librarians, he was suggesting that librarians need to try the service to see how easily Interlibrary Loan and authentication systems can be bypassed.

However, the larger issue here is that the academic publishing model has become unsustainable. Like many university libraries, the library budgets at California State University Long Beach and the California State

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by Aaron Schwartz

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