30 ms·
Journals cost the general public access to science while having an even more questionable value than most copyright holders who at least bother to do things lik
by TheOperator 7y ago
Journals cost the general public access to science while having an even more questionable value than most copyright holders who at least bother to do things like remaster their old properties or develop new drugs. May they burn in hell.
Sci-hub means I can read the latest science about my disability without $40 paywalls on top of a mediocre paper which give eye-poppingly low margins to the actual authors. Papers which ironically often discuss how society makes disability a problem by throwing unnessecary barriers in front of the disabled. That yarn on about how the disabled lack autonomy over their own healthcare.
- Robotbeat 7y agoZero margins. Scientific authors get exactly zero money from academic publishers. In fact, sometimes it's negative money (the journal charges you to publish, i.e. if it's open access). Zero or negative. They get exactly zero dollars of that $40-per-article fee. Which is why authors will often GLADLY give you the article for free if you email them. Scihub is in a legal grey area (not really legal, so I can't technically advocate for its use in my position), but in a way it's automating the normal process of asking researchers for a copy of the paper, thus saving the researchers' time. (Researchgate is a more legal version of this, but with much less access to papers.)
- Vinnl 7y ago> In fact, sometimes it's negative money (the journal charges you to publish, i.e. if it's open access). Not just if it's open access: sometimes authors have to pay "page charges" or have to pay extra to include illustrations.
- joelthelion 7y ago> which give eye-poppingly low margins to the actual authors You mean exactly 0? Authors are almost never paid to publish in a journal.