5 ms·

I work as a scientist, and I never download pirated papers. Why? Mostly because I don't have to - almost all relevant papers are accessible to me straight up, e

by kleiba 5y ago

I work as a scientist, and I never download pirated papers. Why? Mostly because I don't have to - almost all relevant papers are accessible to me straight up, either because the authors / publishers have made the paper available for free themselves or because I have access to the publication through my university's library. But I am in Computer Science - I know that the situation is not at all the same in other disciplines. I think if you want to be cited, it is kind of silly to publish at a venue where your paper is not immediately accessible - there's usually enough other papers to cite, so it's in your own interest to be available. That said, regarding the original question ("why would anyone not do this"), I know from previous discussions here on HN that I'm part of a small minority, but I wouldn't do it because I find it unethical. There's lots of things that I wouldn't mind having / owning but I cannot afford them. Just because they might be available through non-official channels for free does not mean that using that option is the right thing to do. In this line of thought, I also think it is irrelevant whether putting publicly funded research results behind a paywall is ethical on the publisher's side: two unethical acts don't make an ethical one.

Retr0spectrum 5y ago
I used to have access to papers via my university, but I never used that access. The UX of scihub is infinitely better. Anything else just added unnecessary friction to my research process.
- kleiba 5y ago
  That must be quite the convoluted interface at your university then - at my university, access is given automatically based on my being part of the university network. It is absolutely transparent, I only notice when I'm at home and forgot the turn on the VPN to be part of the university network.
  - matthewdgreen 5y ago
    Many of us spent a good chunk of the past 18 months outside of our University network. Sci-Hub turns out to be faster than the University VPN.
    - kleiba 5y ago
      So "it' faster" is the argument? Please.
      - matthewdgreen 5y ago
        Yes. It’s faster. I’m a scientist who authors papers and needs to read an enormous number of them. My ability to easily search and access dozens of papers per day is what makes my job possible. The purpose of the scientific publishing industry is to support that activity and the general dissemination of knowledge. The fact that a random website in Eastern Europe is able to simplify that task is a good thing, and reflects negatively on the existing publishing industry. (As the author of some of those papers publishers are charging to access, I can assure you that the scientists involved don’t mind that people are bypassing journals and their terrible web UX in order to read and cite scientific work.) The fact that my University already pays for all these journals and it’s still more efficient to access them via Sci-Hub only makes the publishing industry look worse, since it means they’re not accomplishing their core purpose, the one that’s supposed to justify their continued existence in this world.
- maleldil 5y ago
  How so? Did you have to go through your uni library website to search the paper? I usually find the paper through Google Scholar, log in to the website using my uni account and download the PDF from there directly. I love SciHub. I used it a lot when I was in a small college that did not have that type of access, but after I moved, I never used it again.
matheusmoreira 5y ago
> I find it unethical Why do you think that? I cannot imagine anyone losing one second of sleep over it. In this case, they can't even argue we're depriving creators of revenue they're owed. The only point of journals is peer review. Experts in the field that filter out the bad articles and publish the good ones. Peer review is the only thing that separates these glorified journals from a random website. Those experts don't see any of this money due to concerns over conflicts of interest. These reviewers could get together and create a blog and it would be better than these journals. The way I see it, these journals have literally no reason to exist. It's unethical to pay them even a single cent for access to anything. The ethical and moral thing to do is to hasten their demise. It is our duty to society.
- kleiba 5y ago
  All of that is true, but it is also irrelevant. It does not matter what could be, we're talking about what is. And that is that someone is offering you access to this paper under some conditions (to which the authors and peer reviewers agreed). You can decide for yourself whether you'd like to accept these conditions or not. But if the answer is "no", I cannot see how that justifies you getting a copy without paying. Where else in life is that a valid option? "I'd love to have a snickers bar, but I don't want to pay a dollar for it, so I guess I just take it." Obviously, there are differences between that example and sci-hub but for the core of the issue, these differences are negligible in my opinion.
  - matheusmoreira 5y ago
    We're not morally obligated to accept the status quo just because things always worked this way. Just because some entrenched monopolists that provide negative value to society managed to find a comfortable rent seeking position, we're morally obligated to pay tribute? Hell no. It boggles my mind that anyone could look at this and accept it. > Where else in life is that a valid option? "I'd love to have a snickers bar, but I don't want to pay a dollar for it, so I guess I just take it." Don't compare physical things to artificially scarce data. They are not the same. Physical things can't be copied infinitely and distributed worldwide at negligible costs. With data, there is no economy. Economies arise when things are scarce. Data isn't. There is nothing to economize. > Obviously, there are differences between that example and sci-hub but for the core of the issue, these differences are negligible in my opinion. These differences are not negligible. Quite the opposite, they are key. The fact is once created data is worth nothing. It's infinitely abundant. Scientists and peer reviewers are the truly scarce resources here and they don't depend on journals to exist. These monopolists try to make scientific articles artificially scarce but unlike the entertainment industry they don't actually provide any value whatsoever. They're just a brand name.
ipaddr 5y ago
I find it unethical to pay these journals. You are enabling a system that doesn't reward the creator only the middleman. When the author gives you a copy you have to wonder who are you supporting?
- kleiba 5y ago
  You don't have to pay the journals. My point is that it is always your choice, but to me, the ethical choice is not between paying for the journal or getting the paper off scihub. It is between paying the journal or not getting access to the paper.
  - bordercases 5y ago
    The money you were paying the journal could be donated to the lab, if it was a matter of keeping a clear conscience. At that point no one loses except the rent extractor.
OrvalWintermute 5y ago
> In this line of thought, I also think it is irrelevant whether putting publicly funded research results behind a paywall is ethical on the publisher's side: two unethical acts don't make an ethical one. I think taking public money, and using it specifically to enrich a private company, and not providing value back to the public who paid for both sides of the transaction is actually unethical. Moreso, I think there is regulatory capture going on, and manipulation of our political leaders through strategic donations [1] If, by opposing an unjust system, you are doing something that may be in name "illegal or contrary" to the law, but morally that is sterling, then you are in the right. By your same argument, you could claim that doing any member of the Underground Railroad that helped blacks escape from an unjust, oppressive system was also doing something unethical. Despite the legal definitions of property at the time. Do you see where this argument heads? [1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2018/jun/29/elsevier-are-corrupting-open-science-in-europe https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2018/j...
- a1369209993 5y ago
  If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so. - Thomas Jefferson
Ar-Curunir 5y ago
It is unethical to paywall knowledge, especially when the ones doing the paywalling have done absolutely nothing to actually help in the discovery of that knowledge. FWIW, I am an academic computer scientist too, have published in top-tier venues, and fully support pirating papers.

by kleiba 5y ago

Retr0spectrum 5y ago

I used to have access to papers via my university, but I never used that access. The UX of scihub is infinitely better. Anything else just added unnecessary friction to my research process.

kleiba 5y ago
That must be quite the convoluted interface at your university then - at my university, access is given automatically based on my being part of the university network. It is absolutely transparent, I only notice when I'm at home and forgot the turn on the VPN to be part of the university network.
- matthewdgreen 5y ago
  Many of us spent a good chunk of the past 18 months outside of our University network. Sci-Hub turns out to be faster than the University VPN.
  - kleiba 5y ago
    So "it' faster" is the argument? Please.
    - matthewdgreen 5y ago
      Yes. It’s faster. I’m a scientist who authors papers and needs to read an enormous number of them. My ability to easily search and access dozens of papers per day is what makes my job possible. The purpose of the scientific publishing industry is to support that activity and the general dissemination of knowledge. The fact that a random website in Eastern Europe is able to simplify that task is a good thing, and reflects negatively on the existing publishing industry. (As the author of some of those papers publishers are charging to access, I can assure you that the scientists involved don’t mind that people are bypassing journals and their terrible web UX in order to read and cite scientific work.) The fact that my University already pays for all these journals and it’s still more efficient to access them via Sci-Hub only makes the publishing industry look worse, since it means they’re not accomplishing their core purpose, the one that’s supposed to justify their continued existence in this world.
maleldil 5y ago
How so? Did you have to go through your uni library website to search the paper? I usually find the paper through Google Scholar, log in to the website using my uni account and download the PDF from there directly. I love SciHub. I used it a lot when I was in a small college that did not have that type of access, but after I moved, I never used it again.

matheusmoreira 5y ago

> I find it unethical Why do you think that? I cannot imagine anyone losing one second of sleep over it. In this case, they can't even argue we're depriving creators of revenue they're owed. The only point of journals is peer review. Experts in the field that filter out the bad articles and publish the good ones. Peer review is the only thing that separates these glorified journals from a random website. Those experts don't see any of this money due to concerns over conflicts of interest. These reviewers could get together and create a blog and it would be better than these journals. The way I see it, these journals have literally no reason to exist. It's unethical to pay them even a single cent for access to anything. The ethical and moral thing to do is to hasten their demise. It is our duty to society.

kleiba 5y ago
All of that is true, but it is also irrelevant. It does not matter what could be, we're talking about what is. And that is that someone is offering you access to this paper under some conditions (to which the authors and peer reviewers agreed). You can decide for yourself whether you'd like to accept these conditions or not. But if the answer is "no", I cannot see how that justifies you getting a copy without paying. Where else in life is that a valid option? "I'd love to have a snickers bar, but I don't want to pay a dollar for it, so I guess I just take it." Obviously, there are differences between that example and sci-hub but for the core of the issue, these differences are negligible in my opinion.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  We're not morally obligated to accept the status quo just because things always worked this way. Just because some entrenched monopolists that provide negative value to society managed to find a comfortable rent seeking position, we're morally obligated to pay tribute? Hell no. It boggles my mind that anyone could look at this and accept it. > Where else in life is that a valid option? "I'd love to have a snickers bar, but I don't want to pay a dollar for it, so I guess I just take it." Don't compare physical things to artificially scarce data. They are not the same. Physical things can't be copied infinitely and distributed worldwide at negligible costs. With data, there is no economy. Economies arise when things are scarce. Data isn't. There is nothing to economize. > Obviously, there are differences between that example and sci-hub but for the core of the issue, these differences are negligible in my opinion. These differences are not negligible. Quite the opposite, they are key. The fact is once created data is worth nothing. It's infinitely abundant. Scientists and peer reviewers are the truly scarce resources here and they don't depend on journals to exist. These monopolists try to make scientific articles artificially scarce but unlike the entertainment industry they don't actually provide any value whatsoever. They're just a brand name.

ipaddr 5y ago

I find it unethical to pay these journals. You are enabling a system that doesn't reward the creator only the middleman. When the author gives you a copy you have to wonder who are you supporting?

kleiba 5y ago
You don't have to pay the journals. My point is that it is always your choice, but to me, the ethical choice is not between paying for the journal or getting the paper off scihub. It is between paying the journal or not getting access to the paper.
- bordercases 5y ago
  The money you were paying the journal could be donated to the lab, if it was a matter of keeping a clear conscience. At that point no one loses except the rent extractor.

OrvalWintermute 5y ago

> In this line of thought, I also think it is irrelevant whether putting publicly funded research results behind a paywall is ethical on the publisher's side: two unethical acts don't make an ethical one. I think taking public money, and using it specifically to enrich a private company, and not providing value back to the public who paid for both sides of the transaction is actually unethical. Moreso, I think there is regulatory capture going on, and manipulation of our political leaders through strategic donations [1] If, by opposing an unjust system, you are doing something that may be in name "illegal or contrary" to the law, but morally that is sterling, then you are in the right. By your same argument, you could claim that doing any member of the Underground Railroad that helped blacks escape from an unjust, oppressive system was also doing something unethical. Despite the legal definitions of property at the time. Do you see where this argument heads? [1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2018/jun/29/elsevier-are-corrupting-open-science-in-europe https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2018/j...

a1369209993 5y ago
If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so. - Thomas Jefferson

Ar-Curunir 5y ago

It is unethical to paywall knowledge, especially when the ones doing the paywalling have done absolutely nothing to actually help in the discovery of that knowledge. FWIW, I am an academic computer scientist too, have published in top-tier venues, and fully support pirating papers.