5 ms·

free is a flawed concept - energy and time went into publishing each paper meaning someone paid. If the authors want to give permission, then she ought to seek

by martin1975 5y ago

free is a flawed concept - energy and time went into publishing each paper meaning someone paid. If the authors want to give permission, then she ought to seek it for each paper she's put on her website or seek permission from whomever owns the copyright. Otherwise it's theft. And no amount of civil disobedience can justify theft.

mrtksn 5y ago
The situation is closer to the people who pay for AOL dial-up in 2021 because they don’t know that they don’t need it for the broadband. Definitely some effort goes to running these companies just like keeping the dial-up lines operational. Totally not cool to steal the dial-up, what we should do is to cancel it.
unixhero 5y ago
Well dude, information wants to be free.
krastanov 5y ago
Some people (me included) consider "intellectual property" an oxymoron. But you do not need to go that far in the extreme to be supportive of scihub and similar entities: I am a scientist. I am paid from research grants, this is what makes it possible for me to write a paper. I am also involved in reviewing papers, but that I do for free. Then I pay a journal to store my paper (the journal did not pay the paper reviewers). Usually I even do most of the typesetting for the paper I write. Then I also pay the journal to get access to the paper. In this story, I do not feel any guilt "stealing" from a journal that did not contribute anything but prestige to the creation of that paper (and was already paid twice for it, before I even tried to read the paper).
- golergka 5y ago
  But do you not make a decision (however rational), to grant rights for your article, as an author, and your labour as a reviewer, to the journal? I'm not a scientist, and I don't know how this works, so this is an honest question. But as an outsider, it seems that the most important intellectual property of these publishers are not articles themselves, but famous journals that scientists all over the world are so eager to publish for. And if this suggestion is right, that don't those scientists actually get paid, although indirectly through eyballs instead of cash? Which they then convert into Hirsch index, and then, through grants and programs and tenures, into cash?
  - krastanov 5y ago
    Yes, but there are a few more facts you should be aware of while forming your opinion: - The most prestigious journals (at least in my field) are not ridiculous prestige rackets like Elsevier. And they are (slowly) moving to open-access models. In these situations the authors of a paper are expected to pay processing fees ($1000 to $5000), but after that the paper is free to access by anyone. - A pretty standard workaround is to put your paper on a pre-print server before even submitting to a journal. Then some draft version of the paper is trivial to access even if the peer-reviewed version is behind a paywall. - The majority of scientists and paper writers are not tenured and do not have job security. Currently, their career growth depends on having done "good science" and regrettably the only trivially easy measure of "good science" is the prestige of journals you have published in. While pretty much all scientists agree that the system is bad, it is difficult to fight the system while your career depends on it. - Slowly, fields are switching to open-access journals. Their prestige is growing and soon the previous bullet point will not be an issue. - It really depends on the field as well. I rarely stumbled upon a physics paper that does not have some legal open-access option. Not so much with Engineering. So while I truly have no problem acting the way you expect me to act in your comment, my engineering colleagues would have much harder time, given that their community does not have as many prestigious open-access options or a habit of using preprint servers. - It is frustratingly slow, but it is very visible how the "prestige" currency is indeed switching from traditional journals to open-access journals (either ones that are free and community driven or paid, but paid only on submission, not on download)
- refurb 5y ago
  “Didnt contribute anything but prestige”? If that’s such a minor contribution, then instead of publishing with a journal you hate, publish with an open source journal? Put your money where your mouth is.
  - krastanov 5y ago
    It is not really money at that point, is it ;) Also, why do assume I have not done that yet? But you can not expect this all to happen overnight, as people's scientific careers are on the line. Thankfully, it is slowly happening, with or without Scihub.
  - cf141q5325 5y ago
    Thats not an option. I need some publications in "highly scored" journals to get my Phd. I dont have the option to publish in open access instead. Its not a matter of having a worse resume with less prestige but one of not getting my dissertation accepted. Its something forced onto me through a process created through corruption.
anigbrowl 5y ago
Abusive copyright is a theft from the public. I shrug about violations to the property rights of the corrupt.
jazzyjackson 5y ago
Not theft bro Taxes paid for the research, taxes pay for access to journals (institutional subscriptions by libraries and universities) so the whole paywall thing just feels like taxpayers are getting fleeced. Make access to journals free and save us all the penny.
crumbshot 5y ago
It's copying, not theft. The latter deprives someone of an item, the former increases its availability. An important distinction when considering the purpose and goals of Sci-Hub.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > It's copying, not theft. > The latter deprives someone of an item ... It's depriving people of money, which is not a trivial asset.
  - pjerem 5y ago
    It’s depriving journals from money they could make from publications when they have already charged the authors to publish them. There is no moral dilemma here : accessing an article thru Sci-Hub deprives nobody from getting its due money. Scientists unfortunately continues not being paid for the paper, journals continues being paid by universities to review the paper, but nobody wants to pay just to read a paper from the journal when it already has been paid for.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      So you agree that it is theft from publishers?
      - pjerem 5y ago
        No, I disagree on the fact that they are « publishers » at all. Reviewers, for sure, and they still get paid for that. But being a publisher means being an intermediate between the author and the reader, which they are not since when I buy the right to read a publication, 0% of my money goes to author. And even, I could be ok to pay them to compensate access fees (lol !) but I prefer using their concurrent (Sci-Hub) I call this a mafia. The fact it is legal don’t change my view on it.
  - PeterisP 5y ago
    It's not depriving authors or the reviewers of money, since they don't get any money anyway from publishers or readers. It is depriving publishers of money by replacing them, doing the same thing they do (intermediary between author+reviewer and reader) better and cheaper i.e. for free - but that's essentially just outcompeting them in their own business. Copyright is there to protect incentives for authors, but it should not grant an artificial monopoly to useless middlemen.
cf141q5325 5y ago
That "ownership" didnt change hands freely. Its a protection racket people are forced into. It is very simple, i have to publish if i want to get my phd. And due to years of corruption those publications have to be in certain journals. My work isnt financed by the publishers. Neither is the review process, my doctoral supervisor gets nothing out of doing reviews like these. I also pay to attend the conference, which is mandatory to get published. I am coerced into signing away my (publicly funded) research to then see it put behind a pay wall. Preventing me from sharing it freely robbing me of the feedback from my peers. Elsevier are a cancer and only function through forced labor. Not only are they rentseeking on somebody elses work, they are creating a worse situation for everyone involved. Including Science itself.
Comevius 5y ago
The authors of these often publicly funded research works don't actually make money, publishing companies like Elsevier do. Elsevier is basically a rent-seeking monopoly. They also publish fake journals, and manipulate the impact factor of their journals by coercing citations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier#Academic_practices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier#Academic_practices
chakkepolja 5y ago
It's not even about someone charging for their work. It's about the mediator overcharging for the littlest work they do. Also about taxpayer funded research being available to everyone, why should tax money go into the pockets of the publishing racket?
SimbalayaShlim 5y ago
One very important element that I think is missing from your moral argument that SciHub is engaged in theft is the countervailing weight of the degree to which the advancement of science is slowed down in a world without SciHub. Without SciHub, only the wealthiest institutions and individuals have access to the latest scientific developments. Even then, the degree of access can be limited. Harvard, for example, does not allow access to the number of journals that are available for free via SciHub. Without SciHub uploading the newest articles, the vast majority of institutions and individuals are unable to access the latest science. This results in the pace of global scientific advancement slowing way, way down. That means that cures to diseases, for example, are either not discovered or the progress toward discovering cures is delayed months, years, or decades. That means people die who did not have to die except for the greed and corruption of the publishing companies and the academic publishing system. It means people suffer unnecessarily. It means progress toward climate change solutions is stifled. It means species that didn't have to go extinct, may go extinct. It goes on and on. It means progress in all fields, in all nations is stymied. It means you, your family members, and your friends may suffer and die from diseases and endure calamities that were entirely unnecessary to experience. The moral argument involved in this debate is ENTIRELY different than Napster. No one dies because they don't get to hear J Lo's latest hit. There is a giant difference between moral and legal. It was illegal for Rosa Parks to not give up her seat for a white person. A white person in Montgomery, AL circa 1955 may have attempted to claim that Ms Parks was guilty of "theft" - that she "stole" a seat from a white person. But by doing what she did, she sparked a movement that has begun to create a different and better world for African Americans. Was Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat to a white person an immoral act? What Alexandra is doing is illegal according to the laws of many nations. But is it immoral? I argue that not only is what Alexandra doing moral, but there is a moral imperative for the work begun by her to continue. If anything, Alexandra ought to be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for her courage and dedication to the betterment of all humanity. I'm not kidding.

mrtksn 5y ago

The situation is closer to the people who pay for AOL dial-up in 2021 because they don’t know that they don’t need it for the broadband. Definitely some effort goes to running these companies just like keeping the dial-up lines operational. Totally not cool to steal the dial-up, what we should do is to cancel it.

unixhero 5y ago

Well dude, information wants to be free.

krastanov 5y ago

Some people (me included) consider "intellectual property" an oxymoron. But you do not need to go that far in the extreme to be supportive of scihub and similar entities: I am a scientist. I am paid from research grants, this is what makes it possible for me to write a paper. I am also involved in reviewing papers, but that I do for free. Then I pay a journal to store my paper (the journal did not pay the paper reviewers). Usually I even do most of the typesetting for the paper I write. Then I also pay the journal to get access to the paper. In this story, I do not feel any guilt "stealing" from a journal that did not contribute anything but prestige to the creation of that paper (and was already paid twice for it, before I even tried to read the paper).

golergka 5y ago
But do you not make a decision (however rational), to grant rights for your article, as an author, and your labour as a reviewer, to the journal? I'm not a scientist, and I don't know how this works, so this is an honest question. But as an outsider, it seems that the most important intellectual property of these publishers are not articles themselves, but famous journals that scientists all over the world are so eager to publish for. And if this suggestion is right, that don't those scientists actually get paid, although indirectly through eyballs instead of cash? Which they then convert into Hirsch index, and then, through grants and programs and tenures, into cash?
- krastanov 5y ago
  Yes, but there are a few more facts you should be aware of while forming your opinion: - The most prestigious journals (at least in my field) are not ridiculous prestige rackets like Elsevier. And they are (slowly) moving to open-access models. In these situations the authors of a paper are expected to pay processing fees ($1000 to $5000), but after that the paper is free to access by anyone. - A pretty standard workaround is to put your paper on a pre-print server before even submitting to a journal. Then some draft version of the paper is trivial to access even if the peer-reviewed version is behind a paywall. - The majority of scientists and paper writers are not tenured and do not have job security. Currently, their career growth depends on having done "good science" and regrettably the only trivially easy measure of "good science" is the prestige of journals you have published in. While pretty much all scientists agree that the system is bad, it is difficult to fight the system while your career depends on it. - Slowly, fields are switching to open-access journals. Their prestige is growing and soon the previous bullet point will not be an issue. - It really depends on the field as well. I rarely stumbled upon a physics paper that does not have some legal open-access option. Not so much with Engineering. So while I truly have no problem acting the way you expect me to act in your comment, my engineering colleagues would have much harder time, given that their community does not have as many prestigious open-access options or a habit of using preprint servers. - It is frustratingly slow, but it is very visible how the "prestige" currency is indeed switching from traditional journals to open-access journals (either ones that are free and community driven or paid, but paid only on submission, not on download)
refurb 5y ago
“Didnt contribute anything but prestige”? If that’s such a minor contribution, then instead of publishing with a journal you hate, publish with an open source journal? Put your money where your mouth is.
- krastanov 5y ago
  It is not really money at that point, is it ;) Also, why do assume I have not done that yet? But you can not expect this all to happen overnight, as people's scientific careers are on the line. Thankfully, it is slowly happening, with or without Scihub.
- cf141q5325 5y ago
  Thats not an option. I need some publications in "highly scored" journals to get my Phd. I dont have the option to publish in open access instead. Its not a matter of having a worse resume with less prestige but one of not getting my dissertation accepted. Its something forced onto me through a process created through corruption.

anigbrowl 5y ago

Abusive copyright is a theft from the public. I shrug about violations to the property rights of the corrupt.

jazzyjackson 5y ago

Not theft bro Taxes paid for the research, taxes pay for access to journals (institutional subscriptions by libraries and universities) so the whole paywall thing just feels like taxpayers are getting fleeced. Make access to journals free and save us all the penny.

crumbshot 5y ago

It's copying, not theft. The latter deprives someone of an item, the former increases its availability. An important distinction when considering the purpose and goals of Sci-Hub.

wolverine876 5y ago
> It's copying, not theft. > The latter deprives someone of an item ... It's depriving people of money, which is not a trivial asset.
- pjerem 5y ago
  It’s depriving journals from money they could make from publications when they have already charged the authors to publish them. There is no moral dilemma here : accessing an article thru Sci-Hub deprives nobody from getting its due money. Scientists unfortunately continues not being paid for the paper, journals continues being paid by universities to review the paper, but nobody wants to pay just to read a paper from the journal when it already has been paid for.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    So you agree that it is theft from publishers?
    - pjerem 5y ago
      No, I disagree on the fact that they are « publishers » at all. Reviewers, for sure, and they still get paid for that. But being a publisher means being an intermediate between the author and the reader, which they are not since when I buy the right to read a publication, 0% of my money goes to author. And even, I could be ok to pay them to compensate access fees (lol !) but I prefer using their concurrent (Sci-Hub) I call this a mafia. The fact it is legal don’t change my view on it.
- PeterisP 5y ago
  It's not depriving authors or the reviewers of money, since they don't get any money anyway from publishers or readers. It is depriving publishers of money by replacing them, doing the same thing they do (intermediary between author+reviewer and reader) better and cheaper i.e. for free - but that's essentially just outcompeting them in their own business. Copyright is there to protect incentives for authors, but it should not grant an artificial monopoly to useless middlemen.

cf141q5325 5y ago

That "ownership" didnt change hands freely. Its a protection racket people are forced into. It is very simple, i have to publish if i want to get my phd. And due to years of corruption those publications have to be in certain journals. My work isnt financed by the publishers. Neither is the review process, my doctoral supervisor gets nothing out of doing reviews like these. I also pay to attend the conference, which is mandatory to get published. I am coerced into signing away my (publicly funded) research to then see it put behind a pay wall. Preventing me from sharing it freely robbing me of the feedback from my peers. Elsevier are a cancer and only function through forced labor. Not only are they rentseeking on somebody elses work, they are creating a worse situation for everyone involved. Including Science itself.

Comevius 5y ago

The authors of these often publicly funded research works don't actually make money, publishing companies like Elsevier do. Elsevier is basically a rent-seeking monopoly. They also publish fake journals, and manipulate the impact factor of their journals by coercing citations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier#Academic_practices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier#Academic_practices

chakkepolja 5y ago

It's not even about someone charging for their work. It's about the mediator overcharging for the littlest work they do. Also about taxpayer funded research being available to everyone, why should tax money go into the pockets of the publishing racket?

SimbalayaShlim 5y ago

One very important element that I think is missing from your moral argument that SciHub is engaged in theft is the countervailing weight of the degree to which the advancement of science is slowed down in a world without SciHub. Without SciHub, only the wealthiest institutions and individuals have access to the latest scientific developments. Even then, the degree of access can be limited. Harvard, for example, does not allow access to the number of journals that are available for free via SciHub. Without SciHub uploading the newest articles, the vast majority of institutions and individuals are unable to access the latest science. This results in the pace of global scientific advancement slowing way, way down. That means that cures to diseases, for example, are either not discovered or the progress toward discovering cures is delayed months, years, or decades. That means people die who did not have to die except for the greed and corruption of the publishing companies and the academic publishing system. It means people suffer unnecessarily. It means progress toward climate change solutions is stifled. It means species that didn't have to go extinct, may go extinct. It goes on and on. It means progress in all fields, in all nations is stymied. It means you, your family members, and your friends may suffer and die from diseases and endure calamities that were entirely unnecessary to experience. The moral argument involved in this debate is ENTIRELY different than Napster. No one dies because they don't get to hear J Lo's latest hit. There is a giant difference between moral and legal. It was illegal for Rosa Parks to not give up her seat for a white person. A white person in Montgomery, AL circa 1955 may have attempted to claim that Ms Parks was guilty of "theft" - that she "stole" a seat from a white person. But by doing what she did, she sparked a movement that has begun to create a different and better world for African Americans. Was Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat to a white person an immoral act? What Alexandra is doing is illegal according to the laws of many nations. But is it immoral? I argue that not only is what Alexandra doing moral, but there is a moral imperative for the work begun by her to continue. If anything, Alexandra ought to be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for her courage and dedication to the betterment of all humanity. I'm not kidding.