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"I am poor" is a poor moral justification to pirate software, movies & books. Software, movies and books are written and funded by private individuals, and if y

"I am poor" is a poor moral justification to pirate software, movies & books. Software, movies and books are written and funded by private individuals, and if you are pirating entertainment its wrong. I'm not the moral police, but "I'm poor" isn't a very good excuse. The stand I take with Scientific Papers is much different - these papers are backed by institutions which are commonly tax-payer funded or non-profits. As a citizen, you have already paid for the funding of this research and not being able to access that data doesn't seem fair. It's like if you paid, before hand, to see a movie created, but never allowed to watch it.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago
"I paid, before hand, to have a movie created, but was never allowed to watch it (for free)" isn't actually all that great a moral justification for pirating a movie, either. But in the case of creating a movie, if I paid to make it happen, first the creators would probably invite me to the first screening, and second, even if they didn't, I could afford to buy a ticket. Scientific research, on the other hand, is paid for, not by "me", but by "us" - by the pooled tax money of millions of people. I, as an individual, do not have the money to "buy a ticket" to all the research that we, as a group, have paid for. What really needs to happen is that we, the taxpayers, put pressure on the government to insist that all government-supported research publish the results for free online somewhere.
- thatcat 11y ago
  >taxpayers should insist that government research publish results for free Publishing in open journals costs significantly more (on the magnitude of thousands per paper) so this plan would likely require significant amounts of additional funding.
  - SquidLord 11y ago
    That is a significant and incredibly poorly defended assertion that you're making there, sir. Given that there are dozens if not hundreds (possibly thousands) of open journals, many of which are heavily digitally based, well tied with distributed storage, and willing to work with any significant publication – the claim that "this plan would likely require significant amounts of additional funding" doesn't even pass the first smell test. You don't just get to assert things without support. That's not only not good science, it's terrible argumentation.
    - thatcat 11y ago
      Here's how you do a proper smell test - http://bfy.tw/4SY1 http://bfy.tw/4SY1 It's pretty obvious that there is a revenue stream that disappears when choosing open access over a paid viewing model.. To cover that - when an author publishes a paper and wants to use the open access model, they pay the journal. The costs come from administering peer review. The true cost of publication is unknown - "Diane Sullenberger, executive editor for Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC, says that the journal would need to charge about $3,700 per paper to cover costs if it went open-access. But Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief of Nature, estimates his journal's internal costs at £20,000–30,000 ($30,000–40,000) per paper. Many publishers say they cannot estimate what their per-paper costs are because article publishing is entangled with other activities" - also from [0]. [0] - http://www.nature.com/news/open-access-the-true-cost-of-science-publishing-1.12676 http://www.nature.com/news/open-access-the-true-cost-of-scie... side note: I fully support open access, but using current publication system and open access would either push some costs on the scientists writing the papers which would be covered by taxpayers in the case of gov-funded research.
      - tjl 11y ago
        Another problem with open access journals is that they generally have lower impact factors. The impact factors of the journals you publish in play a big role in tenure and promotion decisions for professors.
noonespecial 11y ago
>As a citizen, you have already paid for the funding of this research... If you're really poor, then as a citizen, you probably haven't. This is a spot where wealth inequality, copyright and culture collide interestingly. If you are poor a movie or book costs a much larger percentage of your disposable income than someone who is rich. As a society we kind of do have to answer the question of whether poverty should exclude people from culture (or science in this case). So it does become a moral justification. I support the moral right of the starving to steal from the well fed, and count it a moral failing of the well fed that there are permitted to be starving while they luxuriate in their wealth.
RogerL 11y ago
It's not black and white, IMO. Say I write a screenplay that gets turned into a Hollywood blockbuster that makes 9 figures. I'd reasonably want my fair share of that money. But what would I care if some 13 yo kid in a developing nation watches it on the internet? They will never be able to pay for this movie. There is nothing to be made from this. And, you know, entertainment has value. Sure, my script could be fluff, but maybe i have a disabled kid in it, and this brings a lot of internal growth and strength to some. It's a tradeoff, and it isn't clear what the answers are (again, IMO). Rights of the creator to control the destiny of their creation vs the rights of humanity. In the US we have decided that libraries are legal, for example. I can read and consume movies endlessly and never pay a cent, legally. Also, I can open a used book and CD store, and resell products. That hurts the economics of the publisher and producer, but is a net gain to humanity (IMO). Publishers don't get a dime of the money from my used book store, yet it is legal because we have determined that in this case the rights of the consumer trump the rights of the publisher. A different nation, or different time, might lead to different decisions. Let's not get too 'judgey' over people that fall in a different place on that spectrum. OTOH, if there is no way to get paid at all, movies in their current will essentially disappear - essentially no one is going to do a Hollywood type production as a hobby. So, conundrum. Personally, I will never judge somebody that thirsts for information, can't pay for it, and downloads it instead. There is no harm to the producer other than "I want to control my creation". I recognize that desire, but I personally think there are bigger things in play here that trump that.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago

"I paid, before hand, to have a movie created, but was never allowed to watch it (for free)" isn't actually all that great a moral justification for pirating a movie, either. But in the case of creating a movie, if I paid to make it happen, first the creators would probably invite me to the first screening, and second, even if they didn't, I could afford to buy a ticket. Scientific research, on the other hand, is paid for, not by "me", but by "us" - by the pooled tax money of millions of people. I, as an individual, do not have the money to "buy a ticket" to all the research that we, as a group, have paid for. What really needs to happen is that we, the taxpayers, put pressure on the government to insist that all government-supported research publish the results for free online somewhere.

thatcat 11y ago
>taxpayers should insist that government research publish results for free Publishing in open journals costs significantly more (on the magnitude of thousands per paper) so this plan would likely require significant amounts of additional funding.
- SquidLord 11y ago
  That is a significant and incredibly poorly defended assertion that you're making there, sir. Given that there are dozens if not hundreds (possibly thousands) of open journals, many of which are heavily digitally based, well tied with distributed storage, and willing to work with any significant publication – the claim that "this plan would likely require significant amounts of additional funding" doesn't even pass the first smell test. You don't just get to assert things without support. That's not only not good science, it's terrible argumentation.
  - thatcat 11y ago
    Here's how you do a proper smell test - http://bfy.tw/4SY1 http://bfy.tw/4SY1 It's pretty obvious that there is a revenue stream that disappears when choosing open access over a paid viewing model.. To cover that - when an author publishes a paper and wants to use the open access model, they pay the journal. The costs come from administering peer review. The true cost of publication is unknown - "Diane Sullenberger, executive editor for Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC, says that the journal would need to charge about $3,700 per paper to cover costs if it went open-access. But Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief of Nature, estimates his journal's internal costs at £20,000–30,000 ($30,000–40,000) per paper. Many publishers say they cannot estimate what their per-paper costs are because article publishing is entangled with other activities" - also from [0]. [0] - http://www.nature.com/news/open-access-the-true-cost-of-science-publishing-1.12676 http://www.nature.com/news/open-access-the-true-cost-of-scie... side note: I fully support open access, but using current publication system and open access would either push some costs on the scientists writing the papers which would be covered by taxpayers in the case of gov-funded research.
    - tjl 11y ago
      Another problem with open access journals is that they generally have lower impact factors. The impact factors of the journals you publish in play a big role in tenure and promotion decisions for professors.

noonespecial 11y ago

>As a citizen, you have already paid for the funding of this research... If you're really poor, then as a citizen, you probably haven't. This is a spot where wealth inequality, copyright and culture collide interestingly. If you are poor a movie or book costs a much larger percentage of your disposable income than someone who is rich. As a society we kind of do have to answer the question of whether poverty should exclude people from culture (or science in this case). So it does become a moral justification. I support the moral right of the starving to steal from the well fed, and count it a moral failing of the well fed that there are permitted to be starving while they luxuriate in their wealth.

RogerL 11y ago

It's not black and white, IMO. Say I write a screenplay that gets turned into a Hollywood blockbuster that makes 9 figures. I'd reasonably want my fair share of that money. But what would I care if some 13 yo kid in a developing nation watches it on the internet? They will never be able to pay for this movie. There is nothing to be made from this. And, you know, entertainment has value. Sure, my script could be fluff, but maybe i have a disabled kid in it, and this brings a lot of internal growth and strength to some. It's a tradeoff, and it isn't clear what the answers are (again, IMO). Rights of the creator to control the destiny of their creation vs the rights of humanity. In the US we have decided that libraries are legal, for example. I can read and consume movies endlessly and never pay a cent, legally. Also, I can open a used book and CD store, and resell products. That hurts the economics of the publisher and producer, but is a net gain to humanity (IMO). Publishers don't get a dime of the money from my used book store, yet it is legal because we have determined that in this case the rights of the consumer trump the rights of the publisher. A different nation, or different time, might lead to different decisions. Let's not get too 'judgey' over people that fall in a different place on that spectrum. OTOH, if there is no way to get paid at all, movies in their current will essentially disappear - essentially no one is going to do a Hollywood type production as a hobby. So, conundrum. Personally, I will never judge somebody that thirsts for information, can't pay for it, and downloads it instead. There is no harm to the producer other than "I want to control my creation". I recognize that desire, but I personally think there are bigger things in play here that trump that.