"Payment of $32 is just insane when you need to skim or read tens or hundreds of these papers to do research. I obtained these papers by pirating them," Elbakyan told Torrent Freak. "Everyone should have access to knowledge regardless of their income or affiliation. And that’s absolutely legal."
Harvard and Cornell have cut spending on journals, claiming even they could no longer afford them.
Elbakyan isn’t just defending the legal attacks, but is retaliating, claiming that the business model used by companies like Elsevier are illegal according to article 27 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which states that "everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.”
The website is hosted in Russia, and according to Science Alert, the scientist owns no American assets, which is expected to make collecting damages very difficult in the event she loses.
