5 ms·

Little trick: You can access every can't-access article by posting it to http://www.reddit.com/r/scholar http://www.reddit.com/r/scholar and waiting a couple h

Little trick: You can access every can't-access article by posting it to http://www.reddit.com/r/scholar http://www.reddit.com/r/scholar and waiting a couple hours for someone with subscription access to go fetch it for you. This is also a deliciously fun debate, because it calls into question our most fundamental assumptions about the idea of "illegal." For example, is Reddit facilitating illegal activity due to that subreddit? Should anything be done about it? Is Reddit responsible for the actions of this subreddit, or are the users themselves responsible? If the users are responsible, should Reddit be forced to cooperate with law enforcement to penalize those people? What legal penalties, if any, should be inflicted on the users? You can say that it's illegal and shouldn't be done, but what's fascinating to me is that when you try to think of any specific action to be taken, it's quite difficult to come up with anything reasonable. The subreddit tries to argue that it's fair use: https://www.lib.purdue.edu/uco/CopyrightBasics/fair_use.html https://www.lib.purdue.edu/uco/CopyrightBasics/fair_use.html That seems dubious, because it's circumventing the fee that most people have to pay. If everyone used that subreddit rather than pay the fee, the market value of the article would drop to zero. Surely that counts as harm in the eyes of the law? To be clear, I personally believe that fees for academic articles have a terrible chilling effect and should be abolished. It creates a situation where only an elite few have access to research that might otherwise be the decisive factor in, say, a debate about public policy, or whether someone is able to develop a certain algorithm, or help people in general. I'm only pointing out that it's fun to try to debate what should be done about this "illegal activity."

rhino369 12y ago
No way is it fair use since they are doing entire articles. Reddit will get DCMA safe harbor protection as long as they aren't aware of the specifics. The users requesting and providing the papers are probably infringing copyright. Not that I blame them. I'm an IP attorney and I think the pricing and availability of articles to those outside of academia is total shit. I was trying to do some prior art research and it is essentially impossible without academic access. I ended up going to the Library of Congress and do the research there.
- sp332 12y ago
  A use doesn't have to fall under all four factors to be "fair". Educational, noncommercial use can certainly be fair use.
  - sillysaurus3 12y ago
    Circumventing the fee is in no way fair to the corporation trying to charge the fee, especially when the corporation expressly wants to force each of those people to pay the fee. I can't rip off a book for my personal education. Same with an academic article. No matter how much we wish the world was different, that's how the law is currently set up.
    - NoodleIncident 12y ago
      Bad example... people can and do buy books, and let anyone who comes over to their place read them. They even let complete strangers take the books home for a short time, you just have to fill out a form to get a card from them first. The fact that digital copies are rather easier to loan out, and the fact that you don't much care if you get the copy back, shouldn't make /r/scholar illegal. It might, but it shouldn't.
      - dredmorbius 12y ago
        Though in your "fill out a form" example, libraries do often pay much higher fees for works (particularly journals).
    - bnegreve 12y ago
      The law in not that absolute, some constitutions include the right of revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_revolution) Without going this far, I personally think civil disobedience is ok in that case. How can you change the law, if the law is absolute? (I've noticed that this is a rather controversial opinion though.)
  - MichaelApproved 12y ago
icelancer 12y ago
>Little trick: You can access every can't-access article by posting it to http://www.reddit.com/r/scholar http://www.reddit.com/r/scholar and waiting a couple hours for someone with subscription access to go fetch it for you. Awesome. Thanks for the heads-up.
verisimilitude 12y ago
This is the single best tip I've read about anything in the past six months[1]. Here's why: In 2012, I graduated from dental school in debt up to my EYEBALLS[2], and look, I can NOT afford the per article fee required for me to form my own opinions on important dental topics like implantology, oral surgery, adhesive bonding, high strength porcelains. I've had to rely on reading literally tens of thousands of forum posts[3] by dentists to sort out the totally-wrong from the quite-valuable information, to see if the "thought-leaders" (the well-known dentists who are paid to write articles) are supported by fact. I sent a letter to the dean of my dental school about being able to read primary lit articles like I could in school, here's a quote from the letter: "As you are undoubtedly aware, one of the School’s objectives in its mission statement is a devotion of “time and resources to the discovery and dissemination of new knowledge.” Considering this goal, it is frustrating for the School of Dentistry to espouse the value of scientific research yet deny alumni access to the primary literature." I received a very polite non-answer and no action in the two years since I sent it. Ef that. I did, however, receive a letter asking me to donate $1,250 to the School on the occasion of their 125th anniversary. That made me just a little bit upset. So, sillysaurus3, you finally gave me the tools to round out my collection of dental primary literature articles in Pages 2.7.3 (per the second footnote of this post, you will note that I can not afford to upgrade to Papers 3). Because of your post, I can become a better dentist, faster, with fewer errors. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! [1] And I became a father four months ago. [2] Seriously, my student loan payments are 2.7x my house payment. 35% of my after tax income is student loan payments. It's... sad. [3] DentalTown.com ... the good, the bad, and the ugly in dentistry. Just don't go on their political forums. Good God, what a bunch of fools.
- fractallyte 12y ago
  I worked with a fantastic implantology startup (http://bioimplant.at http://bioimplant.at) up until a few months ago, and it was illuminating to discover just how much of the implant industry is a racket. Most surprising of all was the casual ignorance of the majority of 'dentists'/'implantologists' on the DentalTown implants forum. I'd certainly never want any of them in the vicinity of my mouth. As for these institutions trumpeting their devotion to the 'dissemination of new knowledge', get in touch with Dr Pirker at BioImplant, and ask for his point of view on the subject...
visarga 12y ago
> the market value of the article would drop to zero The articles have intrinsic scientific value that's even greater when they are being read.
- vegedor 12y ago
  That is it, I was trying to say that in a GP, but it turned out less apt.
pingec 12y ago
> Little trick: You can access every can't-access article by posting it to http://www.reddit.com/r/scholar http://www.reddit.com/r/scholar and waiting a couple hours for someone with subscription access to go fetch it for you. That or http://sci-hub.org/ http://sci-hub.org/ (it's instant)
runiq 12y ago
Thanks for the link. This resource has saved my hide more than once during my time as a university student. Also, to anyone with access to scientific literature: We welcome you to "pay it forward" and fulfill some requests on <a href="https://reddit.com/r/scholar>/r/scholar</a> https://reddit.com/r/scholar>/r/scholar</a> yourself.
- davidgerard 12y ago
  This particularly applies to those with access to stuff not on JSTOR, which often doesn't get the typical two-hour turnaround of /r/scholar.
juretriglav 12y ago
There's also #icanhazpdf on Twitter https://twitter.com/search?q=%23icanhazpdf https://twitter.com/search?q=%23icanhazpdf which performs the same function as the scholar subreddit.
eva89 12y ago
earn at your home and get paid $5708 in 1 month by working on the internet If You do not have time to Come to Meet then You can Visit our Website Where You can Get Complete Training About this Online Money Making Program register here...swipebuckdotkom
vegedor 12y ago
> Surely that counts as harm in the eyes of the law? It's not very well defined but the intention is clear. [Fiar Use] is concerned with the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; And the effect on the market. You could say that the effect on the market is positive because taking a fee for basically effortless distribution of educational material would be unethical, while the substantiality of the paper is such, that it couldn't be reduced to excerpts for the context in which it is used, to get the meaning across. But that's what fair use just about perfectly covers, quotes and such like, not reproduction. Whether it really is unfair, that's for open access journals to disprove. They could argue monetary disadvantage to the point of monopolization. Although, splitting up a monopoly into many small companies would be detrimental to the collection, too. Anyhow, I'm not sure the advantage is only from price discrimination and hard driven business strategies or editorial edge or what-have-you. [Fair Use] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107

rhino369 12y ago

No way is it fair use since they are doing entire articles. Reddit will get DCMA safe harbor protection as long as they aren't aware of the specifics. The users requesting and providing the papers are probably infringing copyright. Not that I blame them. I'm an IP attorney and I think the pricing and availability of articles to those outside of academia is total shit. I was trying to do some prior art research and it is essentially impossible without academic access. I ended up going to the Library of Congress and do the research there.

sp332 12y ago
A use doesn't have to fall under all four factors to be "fair". Educational, noncommercial use can certainly be fair use.
- sillysaurus3 12y ago
  Circumventing the fee is in no way fair to the corporation trying to charge the fee, especially when the corporation expressly wants to force each of those people to pay the fee. I can't rip off a book for my personal education. Same with an academic article. No matter how much we wish the world was different, that's how the law is currently set up.
  - NoodleIncident 12y ago
    Bad example... people can and do buy books, and let anyone who comes over to their place read them. They even let complete strangers take the books home for a short time, you just have to fill out a form to get a card from them first. The fact that digital copies are rather easier to loan out, and the fact that you don't much care if you get the copy back, shouldn't make /r/scholar illegal. It might, but it shouldn't.
    - dredmorbius 12y ago
      Though in your "fill out a form" example, libraries do often pay much higher fees for works (particularly journals).
  - bnegreve 12y ago
    The law in not that absolute, some constitutions include the right of revolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_revolution) Without going this far, I personally think civil disobedience is ok in that case. How can you change the law, if the law is absolute? (I've noticed that this is a rather controversial opinion though.)
- MichaelApproved 12y ago

icelancer 12y ago

>Little trick: You can access every can't-access article by posting it to http://www.reddit.com/r/scholar http://www.reddit.com/r/scholar and waiting a couple hours for someone with subscription access to go fetch it for you. Awesome. Thanks for the heads-up.

verisimilitude 12y ago

This is the single best tip I've read about anything in the past six months[1]. Here's why: In 2012, I graduated from dental school in debt up to my EYEBALLS[2], and look, I can NOT afford the per article fee required for me to form my own opinions on important dental topics like implantology, oral surgery, adhesive bonding, high strength porcelains. I've had to rely on reading literally tens of thousands of forum posts[3] by dentists to sort out the totally-wrong from the quite-valuable information, to see if the "thought-leaders" (the well-known dentists who are paid to write articles) are supported by fact. I sent a letter to the dean of my dental school about being able to read primary lit articles like I could in school, here's a quote from the letter: "As you are undoubtedly aware, one of the School’s objectives in its mission statement is a devotion of “time and resources to the discovery and dissemination of new knowledge.” Considering this goal, it is frustrating for the School of Dentistry to espouse the value of scientific research yet deny alumni access to the primary literature." I received a very polite non-answer and no action in the two years since I sent it. Ef that. I did, however, receive a letter asking me to donate $1,250 to the School on the occasion of their 125th anniversary. That made me just a little bit upset. So, sillysaurus3, you finally gave me the tools to round out my collection of dental primary literature articles in Pages 2.7.3 (per the second footnote of this post, you will note that I can not afford to upgrade to Papers 3). Because of your post, I can become a better dentist, faster, with fewer errors. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! [1] And I became a father four months ago. [2] Seriously, my student loan payments are 2.7x my house payment. 35% of my after tax income is student loan payments. It's... sad. [3] DentalTown.com ... the good, the bad, and the ugly in dentistry. Just don't go on their political forums. Good God, what a bunch of fools.

fractallyte 12y ago
I worked with a fantastic implantology startup (http://bioimplant.at http://bioimplant.at) up until a few months ago, and it was illuminating to discover just how much of the implant industry is a racket. Most surprising of all was the casual ignorance of the majority of 'dentists'/'implantologists' on the DentalTown implants forum. I'd certainly never want any of them in the vicinity of my mouth. As for these institutions trumpeting their devotion to the 'dissemination of new knowledge', get in touch with Dr Pirker at BioImplant, and ask for his point of view on the subject...

visarga 12y ago

> the market value of the article would drop to zero The articles have intrinsic scientific value that's even greater when they are being read.

vegedor 12y ago
That is it, I was trying to say that in a GP, but it turned out less apt.

pingec 12y ago

> Little trick: You can access every can't-access article by posting it to http://www.reddit.com/r/scholar http://www.reddit.com/r/scholar and waiting a couple hours for someone with subscription access to go fetch it for you. That or http://sci-hub.org/ http://sci-hub.org/ (it's instant)

runiq 12y ago

Thanks for the link. This resource has saved my hide more than once during my time as a university student. Also, to anyone with access to scientific literature: We welcome you to "pay it forward" and fulfill some requests on <a href="https://reddit.com/r/scholar>/r/scholar</a> https://reddit.com/r/scholar>/r/scholar</a> yourself.

davidgerard 12y ago
This particularly applies to those with access to stuff not on JSTOR, which often doesn't get the typical two-hour turnaround of /r/scholar.

juretriglav 12y ago

There's also #icanhazpdf on Twitter https://twitter.com/search?q=%23icanhazpdf https://twitter.com/search?q=%23icanhazpdf which performs the same function as the scholar subreddit.

eva89 12y ago

earn at your home and get paid $5708 in 1 month by working on the internet If You do not have time to Come to Meet then You can Visit our Website Where You can Get Complete Training About this Online Money Making Program register here...swipebuckdotkom

vegedor 12y ago

> Surely that counts as harm in the eyes of the law? It's not very well defined but the intention is clear. [Fiar Use] is concerned with the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; And the effect on the market. You could say that the effect on the market is positive because taking a fee for basically effortless distribution of educational material would be unethical, while the substantiality of the paper is such, that it couldn't be reduced to excerpts for the context in which it is used, to get the meaning across. But that's what fair use just about perfectly covers, quotes and such like, not reproduction. Whether it really is unfair, that's for open access journals to disprove. They could argue monetary disadvantage to the point of monopolization. Although, splitting up a monopoly into many small companies would be detrimental to the collection, too. Anyhow, I'm not sure the advantage is only from price discrimination and hard driven business strategies or editorial edge or what-have-you. [Fair Use] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107