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Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

sciencemag.org

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Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#31

Post by thirdsun »

I don't get it - some commenters are suggesting that the authors of those papers aren't paid, but the publisher is. Why would the author want to limit the spread and accessibility of his work in such a way?

As an outsider who doesn't have any experience with scientific papers and how to get them, it seems very obvious to me that there should be a huge demand for an open platform to publish and read those papers - from authors and readers alike. Why does this role need to be filled by an at best semi-legal party like SciHub?

The fact that users with legitimate access to those papers actually opt for SciHub to get them confirms that the current solutions just aren't working for their users. So why would authors rely on them?

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#32

Post by Chinjut »

hyperbovine wrote: post #21
kcole16 wrote: post #20

What exactly is the benefit of Elsevier for researchers? Is there no free way to publish papers?

Elsevier own some really high profile journals, including The Lancet and Cell. Refusing to publish in these journals, or similar ones in terms of impact factor, is simply not an option for junior faculty in most departments. I have friends for whom "publishing in Nature, Science and/or Cell" is literally a precondition for getting tenure.

Why does academia put up with this stupid system? Academics are already the ones doing all the peer review on their own, free of payment, right? So why not say "Hey, we'll set up our own servers, host papers free for all to access, and then note which ones pass the same levels of scrutiny we'd apply as reviewers were we reviewing them for Nature, Science, Cell, The Lancet, whatever"?

Doesn't seem like the journals actually provide much beyond asking professors to do stuff for free, both in terms of writing papers and reviewing them. Is inertia really worth letting them leech so much money and lock down access (antithetical to the whole idea of public-ation...) while they're at it?

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#34

Post by Derbasti »

thirdsun wrote: post #31

I don't get it - some commenters are suggesting that the authors of those papers aren't paid, but the publisher is. Why would the author want to limit the spread and accessibility of his work in such a way? As an outsider who doesn't have any experience with scientific papers and how to get them, it seems very obvious to me that there should be a huge demand for an open platform to publish and read those papers - fro…

Because many important old-timers still read journals back-to-back. This is how they stay up-to-date, and how they find citations. If you are not in a journal, they won't cite you.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#35

Post by pedrosorio »

thirdsun wrote: post #31

I don't get it - some commenters are suggesting that the authors of those papers aren't paid, but the publisher is. Why would the author want to limit the spread and accessibility of his work in such a way? As an outsider who doesn't have any experience with scientific papers and how to get them, it seems very obvious to me that there should be a huge demand for an open platform to publish and read those papers - fro…

Where a scientist publishes papers can make or break their career. Historically for area A, journals B, C, D have the highest impact. If you want your work to be recognized as high quality you will publish in those journals and whether they are "open" or "controlled by a publisher" is irrelevant.

It just so happens that for most scientific areas, the high impact journals are all owned by publishers.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#36

Post by pron »

thirdsun wrote: post #31

I don't get it - some commenters are suggesting that the authors of those papers aren't paid, but the publisher is. Why would the author want to limit the spread and accessibility of his work in such a way? As an outsider who doesn't have any experience with scientific papers and how to get them, it seems very obvious to me that there should be a huge demand for an open platform to publish and read those papers - fro…

Reputation. The publishers aren't just printing presses. They own journals that have gained reputation over decades and serve as a measure of a paper's strength. There are so many papers being published that researchers can't possibly read them all (even in their own field), so they rely on a "caste system" of journals to rate them. For this system to be trustworthy, journals need to undergo the slow, often self-reinforcing, process of building reputation over time.

Of course, the editors of those journals could try to switch to another form of publishing, but they can't take the journal's name with them, and the move would require guts that, unless many do it, may not be justified. Think about it this way: the entire faculty of Harvard can decide to move to a no-name university, but the name Harvard alone would still carry a lot of weight, and every professor who stays behind lowers the effectiveness of the move considerably.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#37

Post by sgift »

chrismonsanto wrote: post #28
tmalsburg2 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not forget that this whole business would not exist if researchers weren't so addicted to the prestige offered by glamorous journals. Most of the people complaining about scientific publishers are actually complicit in their success and dominance.

The "prestige," as you call it, is necessary to get a job in academia. Where you publish your research is considered a trustworthy approximation to the quality of your research, and requires a lot less time & expertise to vet.

Basically, the same reason why it's easier to get a job offer if you already have a job at a great company: "Someone vetted him for us, he is probably good" - so much easier for those hiring this way than if they'd actually had to check your previous work.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#38

Post by jonathankoren »

thirdsun wrote: post #31

I don't get it - some commenters are suggesting that the authors of those papers aren't paid, but the publisher is. Why would the author want to limit the spread and accessibility of his work in such a way? As an outsider who doesn't have any experience with scientific papers and how to get them, it seems very obvious to me that there should be a huge demand for an open platform to publish and read those papers - fro…

The problem is that that you want to publish in prestigious journals and conferences and the ACM, the IEEE, and everyone else has made deals with publishers to publish the proceedings because the ACM et al aren't publishers. The deals made more sense in the pre digital age, when your only option to read the papers was to get a phone book sized book once a year, but now it's just stupid. Even at universities you can hit the paywall if the journal you want isn't on the whitelist. You end up googling the title and hoping to find it off the authors' websites.

Packing up and creating a new open access journal is possible, but it's hard, because essentially you need a critical mass of the highly regarded members of the community to go with you, because the real power is in the the reputation that the community provides. It's hard to do, but is possible. Linguists are moving from Elsevier published Lingua to a new open access journal called Cognition.

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/01/elsevier-...

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#39

Post by rdl »

Journals becoming free would probably vastly more to the economy than the rents extracted by the journal publishing industry. Sci-Hub is one way, but perhaps another way would be either a philanthropist or government buying the companies out, or applying eminent domain to the research.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#40

Post by jonathankoren »

sigjuice wrote: post #22
bendykstra wrote: post #17

I recently wanted to read a five page paper on graph theory from 1977. The company entrusted with it 40 years ago is charging $38 for it. It is just absurd. I can't imagine that the author, now long dead, would have wanted his work to be so difficult to read.

Just out of curiosity, what paper is this?

All of them.
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