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As someone that went through university solely thanks to Sci-Hub I value any effort that can be put into making scientific papers more available. I would have n

As someone that went through university solely thanks to Sci-Hub I value any effort that can be put into making scientific papers more available. I would have never been able to pay for all the papers I had to access and, in my case, I only got a smoother experience using uni available content in my last semester, so...

StableAlkyne 1y ago
Sci-Hub was an incredible achievement. It was the closest humanity came to the interconnected sharing of knowledge we dreamed the Internet would be in the 20th century. And they tried their hardest to kill it because journals believe they're entitled to extract a century of rent from work they did not perform.
- pdfernhout 1y ago
  Something I wrote related to this in 2001: "An Open Letter to All Grantmakers and Donors On Copyright And Patent Policy In a Post-Scarcity Society" https://pdfernhout.net/open-letter-to-grantmakers-and-donors-on-copyright-policy.html https://pdfernhout.net/open-letter-to-grantmakers-and-donors... "Foundations, other grantmaking agencies handling public tax-exempt dollars, and charitable donors need to consider the implications for their grantmaking or donation policies if they use a now obsolete charitable model of subsidizing proprietary publishing and proprietary research. In order to improve the effectiveness and collaborativeness of the non-profit sector overall, it is suggested these grantmaking organizations and donors move to requiring grantees to make any resulting copyrighted digital materials freely available on the internet, including free licenses granting the right for others to make and redistribute new derivative works without further permission. It is also suggested patents resulting from charitably subsidized research research also be made freely available for general use. The alternative of allowing charitable dollars to result in proprietary copyrights and proprietary patents is corrupting the non-profit sector as it results in a conflict of interest between a non-profit's primary mission of helping humanity through freely sharing knowledge (made possible at little cost by the internet) and a desire to maximize short term revenues through charging licensing fees for access to patents and copyrights. In essence, with the change of publishing and communication economics made possible by the wide spread use of the internet, tax-exempt non-profits have become, perhaps unwittingly, caught up in a new form of "self-dealing", and it is up to donors and grantmakers (and eventually lawmakers) to prevent this by requiring free licensing of results as a condition of their grants and donations." Glad to see better policy happening -- even if all too slowly and only in some areas.
buyucu 1y ago
Scihub is the best. They are doing a huge service to humanity.
- dr_dshiv 1y ago
  Just saying, sci-hub (and libgen) has turned off in my country (Netherlands). Like, they block access at an ISP level — and all ISPs and phone companies are blocking it. I imagine there might be a measurable decline in academic productivity, at that point. Anyway, the warning is: liberal free countries can stop these things if they want to. So… it’s up to us the public. Why can’t university libraries make their books and journals properly accessible in a digital format, like libgen and sci-hub? Why can’t they make their whole collection RAG retrivable, for that matter?
  - jimbob45 1y ago
    Turned off how? Like a Chinese firewall kind of thing? Are you not able to simply VPN around the block?
  - ulrikrasmussen 1y ago
    I've also had some trouble accessing them in Denmark. They're still available on Tor though.
    - buyucu 1y ago
      they also had a telegram channel which sent you the papers.
  - buyucu 1y ago
    I recommend a good vpn, such as Mullvad. But I agree, countries should not allow this kind of authoritarian practices.
  - int_19h 1y ago
    Is there an actual court order in effect, or is it some kind of tacit agreement between ISPs?

StableAlkyne 1y ago

Sci-Hub was an incredible achievement. It was the closest humanity came to the interconnected sharing of knowledge we dreamed the Internet would be in the 20th century. And they tried their hardest to kill it because journals believe they're entitled to extract a century of rent from work they did not perform.

pdfernhout 1y ago
Something I wrote related to this in 2001: "An Open Letter to All Grantmakers and Donors On Copyright And Patent Policy In a Post-Scarcity Society" https://pdfernhout.net/open-letter-to-grantmakers-and-donors-on-copyright-policy.html https://pdfernhout.net/open-letter-to-grantmakers-and-donors... "Foundations, other grantmaking agencies handling public tax-exempt dollars, and charitable donors need to consider the implications for their grantmaking or donation policies if they use a now obsolete charitable model of subsidizing proprietary publishing and proprietary research. In order to improve the effectiveness and collaborativeness of the non-profit sector overall, it is suggested these grantmaking organizations and donors move to requiring grantees to make any resulting copyrighted digital materials freely available on the internet, including free licenses granting the right for others to make and redistribute new derivative works without further permission. It is also suggested patents resulting from charitably subsidized research research also be made freely available for general use. The alternative of allowing charitable dollars to result in proprietary copyrights and proprietary patents is corrupting the non-profit sector as it results in a conflict of interest between a non-profit's primary mission of helping humanity through freely sharing knowledge (made possible at little cost by the internet) and a desire to maximize short term revenues through charging licensing fees for access to patents and copyrights. In essence, with the change of publishing and communication economics made possible by the wide spread use of the internet, tax-exempt non-profits have become, perhaps unwittingly, caught up in a new form of "self-dealing", and it is up to donors and grantmakers (and eventually lawmakers) to prevent this by requiring free licensing of results as a condition of their grants and donations." Glad to see better policy happening -- even if all too slowly and only in some areas.

buyucu 1y ago

Scihub is the best. They are doing a huge service to humanity.

dr_dshiv 1y ago
Just saying, sci-hub (and libgen) has turned off in my country (Netherlands). Like, they block access at an ISP level — and all ISPs and phone companies are blocking it. I imagine there might be a measurable decline in academic productivity, at that point. Anyway, the warning is: liberal free countries can stop these things if they want to. So… it’s up to us the public. Why can’t university libraries make their books and journals properly accessible in a digital format, like libgen and sci-hub? Why can’t they make their whole collection RAG retrivable, for that matter?
- jimbob45 1y ago
  Turned off how? Like a Chinese firewall kind of thing? Are you not able to simply VPN around the block?
- ulrikrasmussen 1y ago
  I've also had some trouble accessing them in Denmark. They're still available on Tor though.
  - buyucu 1y ago
    they also had a telegram channel which sent you the papers.
- buyucu 1y ago
  I recommend a good vpn, such as Mullvad. But I agree, countries should not allow this kind of authoritarian practices.
- int_19h 1y ago
  Is there an actual court order in effect, or is it some kind of tacit agreement between ISPs?