Free for a Fee

First came the $15 million fine a New York federal judge imposed on Sci-Hub, a scientific research piracy site that has freed tens of thousands of research papers from behind paywalls. That was in June, and the site’s overseas operator, Alexandra Elbakyan, said she’d never pay plaintiff Elsevier or stop the infringing behavior.

Now on Friday, a Virginia federal judge dinged the site for another $4.8 million for the same infringing behavior, this time from a lawsuit brought by the American Chemical Society.

The latest Friday order (PDF), like the previous order (PDF), demands that domain providers stop servicing Sci-Hub. The site has been playing a game of domain Whac-a-Mole for years in a bid to skirt US judicial orders.