[whimsicalism]

Seeding copyrighted content? No, not legal.

[jamiek88]

Eyes wide open and all that but civil disobedience is a thing.

[PoignardAzur]

Oh come on. Obviously GP was answering the question about legality, not talking about ethics.

[whimsicalism]

Right you are. If you’re going to seed, I would recommend a seedbox.

[HomeDeLaPot]

Do what's right, whether it's legal or not.

[bellyfullofbac]

In Germany you'll get sued very quickly for offering others' copyrighted content, there's a whole industry there of lawyers mailing you that you've violated their clients' (copyright holders) rights but if you pay the around 1000 Euroes "damages" and sign a letter agreeing to not violate their rights again it'll go away. If they catch you seeding/uploading a part of another of their copyrighted content, then they'll ask for even more money.

So if you think seeding is the right thing, you'll probably end up really broke and unable to pay your bills there.

The other side of this are lawyers profiting off people who get these letters and charging money for basically copy-pasted emails on how to respond.

[Jiocus]

Without the copyright holders permission, that is.

There are many things available through e.g bittorrent because the author made it so.

[superkuh]

That's true. Putting tax funded research studies behind corporate paywalls also is in many contexts and jurisdictions. But it's funny how that one doesn't ever get prosecuted.

[whimsicalism]

In what jurisdictions is elsevier breaking the law?

I think the way intellectual property law works is bad, but afaik they are operating within the law as it stands now.