Continuing the discussion on the Scihub litigation, in Part II of their post, Rishabh Upadhyay and Pragati Upadhyay turn to the August 2025 order as a vantage point to examine what the litigation has, so far, failed to do. They argue that the procedural exclusion of intervenors and the Court’s reliance on contempt have sidelined the core question of academic access under Section 52. Building on this, they make the case for reimagining fair dealing as an ex ante right

The Sci-Hub litigation has dragged on for years without confronting the core question it presents: what is the purpose of copyright in academic works? As the Court circles procedural issues, Rishabh Upadhyay and Pragati Upadhyay argue that a deeper structural failure remains unaddressed, one that, in Hohfeldian terms, allows publishers to enforce claim-rights while evading their correlative duties. The result is a system that converts publicly funded research into privately controlled access. Before addressing the symptom, they argue, the law