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Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

sciencemag.org

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Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#41

Post by thirdsun »

pedrosorio wrote: post #35
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.

Thanks, got it - so it's the equivalent of signing to a major label instead of releasing your album on Bandcamp.

However, and I may be very naive and idealistic here, shouldn't academics be able to rate and value a paper purely on quality rather than the medium it was published in?

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#42

Post by kriro »

I'm ideologically primed to favor free access to information (especially if any tax money was involved which is true for pretty much all research) but I think a middle ground of moving scientific publishing to a nextflix/itunes/kindle model would solve a lot of issues. Access a paper -> (micro) payment to the journal (who could in return set up another (micro) payment to the actual author). The biggest issue is the pricing model (35$/paper when a researcher typically needs to read 100+ papers per papers he/she writes) and the lack of a single point of access.

Like iTunes for science. Go do it someone. I won't envy you, I'll expect you to fail but if you pull it off I'll be forever grateful.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#43

Post by sachkris »

The first three paragraphs of the article clearly tells what is wrong with the system - "Publishers are overcharging for content". Basically, they just continued their business model from the printed-book era to the e-book era without much change. The publishers should think of allowing individuals to subscribe to the content and charge them (nominally) for what they use, rather than putting the load on the Universities and making them subscribe the entire spectrum of journals. The Pay-per-view model of Elsevier currently charges an individual researcher (a staggering) "$31.50 per article or chapter for most Elsevier content. Select titles are priced between $19.95 and $41.95 (subject to change)." [0]

[0] -https://www.elsevier.com/solutions/sciencedirect/content/pay...

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#44

Post by isido »

ericjang wrote: post #12

Does this suggest that publishing companies like Reed Elsevier plc (RELX group) will eventually be starved of revenue from papers? Or have they figured out an alternative business model to adapt to the changing times?

Publishers probably cannot keep up with the current revenue levels, especially since the university library funding is constantly decreasing.

And besides Scihub, there are emerging institutional solutions to this problem, like research funders demanding that research paid with public funds must be publicly available, and universities setting up academic repositories where papers published elsewhere are available in open access form.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#45

Post by studentrob »

jimrandomh wrote: post #15

Elsevier believes they have United States law on their side. And they're right; they do have US law on their side. That just doesn't mean much anymore; it's been worn away by decades of conspicuous corruption, and lost most of its respect. In principle, this should be addressed by the US legislature. In practice, academia has effectively voted no-confidence and bypassed the legal system entirely.

> In practice, academia has effectively voted no-confidence and bypassed the legal system entirely.

Yup. Seems like civil disobedience from the research community. Pretty interesting to see a civil rights movement happening online. Who says you can't sit at home and be an activist? ;-)

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#46

Post by raverbashing »

userbinator wrote: post #13
taneq wrote: post #4

> “I’m all for universal access, but not theft!” tweeted Elsevier’s director of universal access, Alicia Wise You want everybody to have access, but you don't want them to get it for free. Wow, so you want the entire world to all pay for the material you were given for free. Hmmmm.

That reminds me of the whole talk around "open standards" that you have to pay for to legally acquire (ANSI, ISO, IEEE, etc.), although in that case the situation is slightly different. Also, the "free software" vs "open source" distinction.

Oh this is a huge pet peeve of mine, it's unbelievable.

Granted, a lot of work goes into these standards, and they don't come out of nowere, still

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#48

Post by studentrob »

thirdsun wrote: post #41
pedrosorio wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thanks, got it - so it's the equivalent of signing to a major label instead of releasing your album on Bandcamp. However, and I may be very naive and idealistic here, shouldn't academics be able to rate and value a paper purely on quality rather than the medium it was published in?

> shouldn't academics be able to rate and value a paper purely on quality rather than the medium it was published in?

Yes. I'm not familiar with all the ins and outs of the current publishing system. But it seems there is room for a more modern publishing agency that can take the best of the old publishing model and combine it with digital age thinking.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#49

Post by finfet1 »

leot wrote: post #18

Elsevier and others can go something themselves. Their behavior over the last two decades has been little more than reprehensible rent-seeking. Whatever goodwill they had disappeared as they sapped with increasing ruthlessness the dollars of students and non-profits. See, e.g., one of many such figures: http://www.lib.washington.edu/scholpub/images/economics_grap... It is absurd and dishonest to call Sci-Hub "piracy"…

Totally agree. I have gone through academia and am now in industry; the other day I wanted to read and browse basic papers in IEEE Explore for basic knowledge on new topics. Since I am no longer a student, I am willing to pay money - as much as hundreds to get unlimited access. Instead, for hundreds, IEEE explore offers a measly ("generous") 25 downloads a month or some such non-sense It just seemed so miserly of them. We researchers had formerly given them pretty much free research to publish, and they turn their back on even legitimate paid avenues for us to get the papers. We are willing to pay; but where is the option?

Anyone that has gone through research and academia knows that you often need to browse many papers to even find the ones worth reading. 25 paper cap includes browsing PDFs; you will easily hit that cap in a single day simply through browsing.

IEEE and IEEE Explore can go something themselves. This is coming from a published IEEE author and academic researcher.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#50

Post by throwaway3523 »

Just as a note about who gets denied access.... I work in a US research lab but my department got spun off into a company. With the loss of my university credentials came my loss of library access.... I still need to read papers in random journals to do my job though.

EDIT: A cash poor company.

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