CNKI should contribute to knowledge flow

According to a series of court verdicts recently disclosed by the Beijing judicial authorities, China National Knowledge Infrastructure has infringed on the rights of the plaintiffs by providing paid online access to their articles without permission. It was ordered to pay compensation of 196,000 yuan ($28,988) for the losses involved in 13 cases.

China National Knowledge Infrastructure, CNKI, is a near-monopoly provider of pay-to-view academic papers that is owned by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.

Three months ago some institutes of higher education and research, including the well-funded Peking University and Chinese Academy of Sciences, stopped using the website citing exorbitant charges. At the same time, some scholars sued CNKI for making profits from their research findings without their permission.