3 ms·

Warning people not to use sci-hub, mentioning it by name as something that you shouldn't use, is a plausibly deniable way to spread the word about it.

Mediterraneo10 8y ago
Oh, I can assure you that this particular university is dead serious about SciHub use being undesirable. The course I mentioned dedicates significant space to respecting copyright, not only as something expected of researchers, but as a moral duty. Also, inter-library loan is a source of income for the university library, that is, if the library does not have access to a particular journal in the databases it subscribes to, then it will obtain the journal article from elsewhere but at a hefty fee, so perhaps this is another reason they would prefer students avoid SciHub.
- dj-wonk 8y ago
  Enlightened morality often means being mindful of tradeoffs. Not doing an exhaustive search of academic literature because it is prohibitively expensive or time-consuming is a clear negative -- doing so may result in lower-quality research. I personally see many good reasons to distinguish general intellectual property theft from using SciHub for academic research.
- jumelles 8y ago
  Which university is this? If anything involving copyright is "moral," it's breaking it.
  - ascar 8y ago
    Who defines "moral"? I can't see that breaking any law is the moral thing to do as the law is the moral code that society agreed to give it self (at least in a democracy). By your logic it might become moral to murder, because it benefits you and maybe many others more than the one murdered. Following the law is always a moral obligation and personally deciding which rules should be followed and which shouldn't is a dangerous space. Especially from a biased and self-centered world view, which we all have as individuals.
    - jplayer01 8y ago
      Or, you know, it's the law corporations were able to push into existence through money. Law isn't necessarily a reflection of our moral code. It can be. Parts of it are (Grundgesetz or the Constitution, sure), but plenty of laws aren't decided by morality and aren't the arbiters of it either and even if they reflect the morality of some people, it isn't morally justified. Or people wouldn't have ever fought for black rights (Jim Crow laws say hello).
    - darkpuma 8y ago
      > "Who defines "moral"?" You do. And I do. You define it for you, and I define it for me. You and I are both going to define murder as immoral, and not commit murder. Should one of us define it otherwise, the other will in practice likely be powerless to prevent the outcome. This is the way the world works. At the end of the day, there is no universal ruleset that all humans will follow like automata; we each get to make our own path. The best we can do is attempt to persuade others to change their moral framework and to gang up with people who agree with us to create systems that inhibit those who disagree with us. There is no sense moaning about this state of affairs because this is the way it's always been and the way it always will be. > "By your logic it might become moral to murder" Something else to keep in mind, is that morality is likely rooted in some limited extent in biology. The basis for this assertion is that across time and cultures, one form or another of law against murder has always been popular in any human civilization you can find evidence for. Even when societies carved out formal exceptions to this rule, such as the legal witch burnings in recent European history, the human sacrifices in more ancient European history, or the human sacrifices seen in Aztec civilization (that had no plausible meaningful cultural exchange with Eurasia for many thousands of years), there still exist laws in some form against murder in general. My point with this likely controversial digression is that it's unlikely that anybody who constructs an argument for the morality of academic copyright infringement will accidentally construct a persuasive argument for casual murder. Even if you use formal logic to find a link between their perspective on copyright to casual murder, that formal argument will be irrationally rejected by nearly everybody, who has an innate predisposition towards rejecting a system of legal casual murder. tl;dr: reductio ad fortuita occidendum is not a persuasive argument.
    - 8y ago

Mediterraneo10 8y ago

Oh, I can assure you that this particular university is dead serious about SciHub use being undesirable. The course I mentioned dedicates significant space to respecting copyright, not only as something expected of researchers, but as a moral duty. Also, inter-library loan is a source of income for the university library, that is, if the library does not have access to a particular journal in the databases it subscribes to, then it will obtain the journal article from elsewhere but at a hefty fee, so perhaps this is another reason they would prefer students avoid SciHub.

dj-wonk 8y ago
Enlightened morality often means being mindful of tradeoffs. Not doing an exhaustive search of academic literature because it is prohibitively expensive or time-consuming is a clear negative -- doing so may result in lower-quality research. I personally see many good reasons to distinguish general intellectual property theft from using SciHub for academic research.
jumelles 8y ago
Which university is this? If anything involving copyright is "moral," it's breaking it.
- ascar 8y ago
  Who defines "moral"? I can't see that breaking any law is the moral thing to do as the law is the moral code that society agreed to give it self (at least in a democracy). By your logic it might become moral to murder, because it benefits you and maybe many others more than the one murdered. Following the law is always a moral obligation and personally deciding which rules should be followed and which shouldn't is a dangerous space. Especially from a biased and self-centered world view, which we all have as individuals.
  - jplayer01 8y ago
    Or, you know, it's the law corporations were able to push into existence through money. Law isn't necessarily a reflection of our moral code. It can be. Parts of it are (Grundgesetz or the Constitution, sure), but plenty of laws aren't decided by morality and aren't the arbiters of it either and even if they reflect the morality of some people, it isn't morally justified. Or people wouldn't have ever fought for black rights (Jim Crow laws say hello).
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    > "Who defines "moral"?" You do. And I do. You define it for you, and I define it for me. You and I are both going to define murder as immoral, and not commit murder. Should one of us define it otherwise, the other will in practice likely be powerless to prevent the outcome. This is the way the world works. At the end of the day, there is no universal ruleset that all humans will follow like automata; we each get to make our own path. The best we can do is attempt to persuade others to change their moral framework and to gang up with people who agree with us to create systems that inhibit those who disagree with us. There is no sense moaning about this state of affairs because this is the way it's always been and the way it always will be. > "By your logic it might become moral to murder" Something else to keep in mind, is that morality is likely rooted in some limited extent in biology. The basis for this assertion is that across time and cultures, one form or another of law against murder has always been popular in any human civilization you can find evidence for. Even when societies carved out formal exceptions to this rule, such as the legal witch burnings in recent European history, the human sacrifices in more ancient European history, or the human sacrifices seen in Aztec civilization (that had no plausible meaningful cultural exchange with Eurasia for many thousands of years), there still exist laws in some form against murder in general. My point with this likely controversial digression is that it's unlikely that anybody who constructs an argument for the morality of academic copyright infringement will accidentally construct a persuasive argument for casual murder. Even if you use formal logic to find a link between their perspective on copyright to casual murder, that formal argument will be irrationally rejected by nearly everybody, who has an innate predisposition towards rejecting a system of legal casual murder. tl;dr: reductio ad fortuita occidendum is not a persuasive argument.
  - 8y ago