7 ms·
the parallels to swartz sound like overdramatization. she created the website for people (like me) who dont have access to all the libraries and dont want to sp
by return0 11y ago
the parallels to swartz sound like overdramatization. she created the website for people (like me) who dont have access to all the libraries and dont want to spend a lifetime searching colleagues with access. there is just too much science nowadays to justify paywalling it. its a very practical matter for scientists to be well informed. i am split whether i like this publicity. on the one hand, it may lead to closing it down, on the other hand it might finally force the hand of regulators against the scientists who publish only behind paywalls.
To anyone who tries to defend elsevier here on the grounds of capitalist justice: hold your horses, you are defending a greedy corporation that offers nothing to science. think about this: the fee for making a paper 'open access' in , say, cell journals is $5000 per paper, even though elsevier does not pay the writer, does not write or format the paper, does not edit any images, does not review the content, does not correct the paper. i.e. you pay $5000 for hosting one pdf file, possibly 2 (it gets worse, some grants e.g. the erc grants require open access and high impact factor, hence shelling more money to elsevier). this is not an issue of copyright, its about an outright crazy system which forces scientists behind paywalls because funding sources explicitly require it.
if you think only commercial publishers have the gift of curating good science, look at elife, an open access journal with reasonable fees, a great website, and multiple high profile papers already. please dont defend businesses that are literally potentially harming your health.
- wolfgke 11y ago> the parallels to swartz sound like overdramatization. I don't think so. Read Swartz' Guerilla Open Access Manifesto for details: > https://archive.org/details/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto > https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly2008_djvu.txt > https://archive.org/download/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly2008.pdf
- aw3c2 11y agoSure but the origins of this are much older.
- cubano 11y agoDefend Elsevier? I think not. I am currently working with a startup that has to do with prescription drug refilling. Obviously, interactions between drugs and such can have fatal consequences if not understood, so we responsibly are providing that information to our users. Elsevier provides an API for that data, but wanted to charge around $40k/year for access. Our business model is of course free to users (we charge the pharmacies a modest monthly fee) $40k/yr simply too damn high...so potentially life-and-health saving information is kept from the people whom need it the most. Yes we did eventually find a lower cost provider, but as far as shedding tears for Elsevier? Hell fucking no.
- return0 11y agoI'm pretty sure that all the insiders know how bad it is. but still some people see it as an affront to the free market.
- wolfgke 11y agoCopyright laws are an affront to the free market, since they don't allow selling what one wants or what the customert wants. Instead one can only sell what the copyright holder allows.
- whiddershins 11y agoCopyright laws are a finite duration social and legal grant to the creators of intellectual property with the intention of encouraging creation of work. It is artificial relative to a particular vision of a "free" market, but the same could be said about any of the mechanisms that structure the market, thereby allowing it to function. In order to have a market you must have some rules. So what we do is try to figure out what rules work well and which ones impede things. Copyright/Patent/Trademark isn't a priori bad. It has funded many musicians, writers, inventors, painters, etc. It has often been referred to as one of the great innovations of Enlightenment era free-market practice. It allowed generations of thinkers to have compensation when previously the only form of wealth was goods and land backed up by physical violence. This is a nuanced topic, and I think it makes sense to treat it as such.
- Fomite 11y ago> you are defending a greedy corporation that offers nothing to science Several journals I publish in published by commercial companies also support scientific societies.