8 ms·

Rights holders have been trying to get rid of sites like the pirate bay for more than a decade, and if anything PB is easier to find and more reliable to use th

• jszymborski 6y ago
  This case is unlike movie or music distribution in there has been convenient online distribution of papers since arguably the dawn of the internet (ok, maybe "convenient" came later). The difference is, the journal publisher groups realised they can continue charging extortionary prices and get rid of the competition of "free" paper websites by suing everything that moved. Academics, generally getting slightly-less-than-free copies of the papers at their institutions and generally being apathetic about their universities being extorted, created a gulf and precluded any kind of pirate culture. But publishers have since become emboldened, prices have risen, the inequality access has been increasingly advocated for and brought to light, and the open access journals had a bit of momentum for moment. Honestly, if you ask me, the solution here is pretty simple (at least in some fields). Negotiate (if it's not already granted) the permission to publish manuscripts and pre-prints. Submit them to ArXiV or Bio/MedRxiv, or whatever repository. This doesn't tackle the issue of academics paying publishers to send emails to other academics who in turn work for free to review papers, but one battle at a time.
  • dcomp 6y ago
    Also when I was in academia (masters). If my university didn't subscribe to a journal (and it wasn't available via an inter-library loan (In the UK you can ask for a journal from another university)). I would just shoot an email to the author asking for a copy Edit: Actually I usually sent emails even when we did have a hard copy but no online access. Just because I couldn't be bothered to find the physical copy
    • jowsie 6y ago
      The issue with this is the authors of some papers either don't respond or simply aren't alive anymore.
      • daotoad 6y ago
        It also scales really badly. If a paper becomes prominent and many people want to read it, is it reasonable for the authors to be inundated with hundreds of requests for a copy? What is the point of journals if we rely on word of mouth interactions to share information?
        • pradn 6y ago
          In the humanities, authors often upload to Academia.EDU. It doesn't seem to have as much use among scientists.
  • higerordermap 6y ago
    I think an appropriate solution is getting the prestigious reviewers of top journals to quit and move to open access model funded by the government. The difficult step is convincing the bureacracy at different levels (universities, govt) and of course preventing lobbying.
• dd36 6y ago
  We screwed content makers with mp3s, which allowed publishers to follow suit. We changed the paradigm. This is a bit harder because schools pay for content not the researchers directly. It’ll be harder to force change.
• kleer001 6y ago
  > The way to "beat" piracy is to consider it as a competitor... I hope it's not too tangential, but I think of economics and politics the same way: XYZ-ism is good you say? ABC-ism is bad? Sure, grow your XYZ-ism naturally, go for the bootstraps. If it's more awesome it should be more efficient and productive, people should choose it naturally, happily, and calmly in their own best interest without coercion or propaganda. But, of course, that never happens.
  • pmyteh 6y ago
    One problem with this idea is that collective action problems exist. I truly want this new world, but my employment and promotion decisions are based on the old one (closed journals are older, and most of the prestigious journals are old and closed, and to get a job that's where I need to publish). Critically, the same is also true of all of my colleagues. So we all submit to the old journals, which thereby retain their prestige. In many ways, it's similar to platform economics, with Elsevier in place of WhatsApp. (I'm also not sure that awesome == efficient + productive, but that's a different issue).
    • kleer001 6y ago
      yup, awesome will need to include charisma and deep pockets to bootstrap. then again I can see a smooth transition from an extant system with an oddly benificent CEO, but I can be delusional like that. if awesome = neither effective nor productive then we're going to get mass starvation and mass death, or at the very least feudalism, and that doesn't sound nice I know of no competitive natural system that's more wasteful than its competitors
  • thatcat 6y ago
    what's a monopoly?
    • kleer001 6y ago
      In this context, in my personal opinion and world view? A monopoly is MAGLIGNANT FUCKING TERATOMA! Excuse my emphasis and emotion, but that's the best analogy I can come up with. Unless of course you want an economic or dictionary definition, but I don't think that's what you were asking.
• wincy 6y ago
  When our daughter was born with a rare life threatening condition my wife used SciHub to read articles about her condition. While the doctors had merely skimmed the pages, my wife pored over them and found a suggestion of using a particular drug. After asking five different doctors about it, one finally agreed to prescribe it. It was strange how reticent doctors were to prescribe something and instead just told us she was going to die. If she’s believed to be terminal anyway, why not prescribe a relatively well known drug and see if it helps? I’m happy to say our daughters prognosis has improved greatly since she started this treatment. Without SciHub she might not still be with us.
  • breck 6y ago
    This is an incredible and inspiring story. Would love to read more. Could I connect you with some journalists? My contact info is in my profile.
    • wincy 6y ago
      Sure, my wife loves talking about her (it was mostly her, honestly) struggle to get the best care for our daughter, even at a “good” children’s hospital, I’ll send you an email.
    • f430 6y ago
      make sure to post the article here when you finish writing it or a video.
    • reader345611 6y ago
      Wish it's possible to publish user 'eloff' 's story above too if he/she has no problem with it.
  • maximente 6y ago
    wow, vanilla comment but this is just really inspiring. kudos to her and best wishes to y'all going forward.
    • boogies 6y ago
• rhino369 6y ago
  >Rights holders have been trying to get rid of sites like the pirate bay for more than a decade, and if anything PB is easier to find and more reliable to use than ever before. Maybe I'm just older and have less free time, but public trackers seem less and less useful every year. And private trackers have a huge barrier to entry.
  • djsumdog 6y ago
    Pirate Bay is a great tracker of last resort .. and when I look for something rare I can't find on a public tracker, it usually showed up on Pirate Bay.
• AlexandrB 6y ago
  > Publishers continue to screw content makers, but that's another conversation. Maybe, but part of the reason content creators will keep getting screwed is that there’s no way to pay them equitably with $5/mo subscriptions. Prices would have to rise. So it seems that the market alternative to piracy is gross exploitation.
  • xnyan 6y ago
    I'm not saying it's right, in fact I will state the opposite - content creators are getting shafted on royalties - but it's always been this way for music and books and all content. Most content creators got a shitty deal on physical media and continue to get a shitty deal on streaming. I don't accept as a given that my $10 a month subscription that I use to stream as few hours of music can't be fairly split with the publisher and the creator.
  • staplers 6y ago
    The value of content creation has dramatically declined because the barrier to entry has fallen so low. I find great new artists every week and would never have to listen to the same song twice (if I chose). I can write a song, make a movie, and take photographs all from a pocket computer and publish globally instantly.
• LMYahooTFY 6y ago
  Gabe Newell was known for taking this stance if I recall correctly, describing piracy as usually a service problem and not a pricing problem. "We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem," he said. "If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable."
  • ergocoder 6y ago
    It's only true in the first-world country. Microsoft office is ~$1000, which is 2x higher than average month salary in Thailand/Vietnam. A CD album is $10(?), which is equivalent to 10 meals. A cassette is $3, which is 3 meals. Pirate is the only way to access these things. It's a pricing problem.
    • the_pwner224 6y ago
      Prices of software can be adjusted based on the user's location. Steam does this. It is of course subject to abuse but most people pay the asked price.