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Comment by colejohnson66 | Hacker News Reader

Despite how you and I feel about Sci-Hub, it is breaking the law. Copyright infringement, whether you agree with it or not, is a crime. If Twitter received notice from the journals’ legal teams to take down the account, they may not have the ability to fight back (depending on the journals’ legal arguments).

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"There are unjust laws, just as there are unjust men." - Mohandas Gandhi.

Jim Crow and segregation were also "the law" at some point.

Unjust laws must be fought and overcome.

Rosa Parks broke the (unjust) law, but that doesn’t mean everyone who didn’t do the same before her is bad. Are all black people who suffered oppression up to that point wrong for not fighting for their rights? I don’t think so. That’s all I’m saying. Just because Twitter choose to follow the law regarding copyright does not mean they’re “evil”. I honestly don’t see how people are reading my comment as support of Twitter taking down Sci-Hub? Literally, the first few words of my comment are: “Despite how you and I feel about Sci-Hub...” Key word: I.

But it it breaking any laws on Twitter? Unless the twitter account was providing links to copyright material, probably not.

If the Twitter account provided links to Sci-Hub’s website, it’d be very easy for the journals to construe infringement. Whether the account actually did, I don’t know. I’m just pointing out how it could work.

They could have at least tried to fight it.

They could’ve. But just because they didn’t, doesn’t mean they’re complicit. Someone else mentioned Jim Crow laws as an example of unjust laws that should’ve been fought against. That doesn’t mean everyone who didn’t fight is complicit. If you don’t have the willpower or firepower (legal arguments) to fight something, that doesn’t make you bad for backing out.

What are the efficient ways to fight unjust laws?

Voting and contacting your representatives is pretty efficient... Yeah, lobbying from big entities is a problem that we need to solve, but come on, look at what we have already achieved. Convincing the average people around you is frequently more work.

I don’t know. Some would say “take a stand”, but all I know is that: if your legal team says there’s almost no way you’d win a lawsuit from the journals, and that you could be on the hook for millions of dollars in damages, you don’t “take a stand”. Because it’s not just the company you’d be taking down, but yourself from the inevitable lawsuits from angry investors. It’s sad, buts it’s the reality we live in.

You are right. But to add, these laws are lobbied by large corporations that don't care about much other than their profits.

Change is hard and it's okay, not everyone will fight for it. But some will.

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