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Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

sciencemag.org

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Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#81

Post by chris_wot »

gohrt wrote: post #52
Chinjut wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ac…

Because most of leading academics were happy with the system and don't care about open access. This is slowly changing as the Internet generation takes over.

Is tenure still as widely available as it once was?

But yes, entrenched interests hold everyone back eventually. They are currently being disrupted, and this time they lost the battle completely - there is not a single thing they can do to effectively keep their entrenched interests from crumbling.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#82

Post by chris_wot »

Blahah wrote: post #76
chris_wot wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone got a breakdown of actual costs incurred by Elsevier? Note I don't include marketing their journals, I mean a breakdown labour costs, rent for buildings (where the building are located) and other production costs. I'd like to know their revenue, and a full price list per journal they publish. I very much believe that if we looked at what they make in profits, we'll see that they can't justify how much they…

I've done a lot of work on tools that interface with the academic publishing infrastructure. Elsevier not only make a huge profit margin, but they operate at a staggering level of inefficiency. They are haemorrhaging money and producing precisely nothing of value, and still making profit for their investors hand over fist. Quite incredible.

Can you give examples of the inefficiencies you discovered?

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#83

Post by philjohn »

Blahah wrote: post #72
youngbullind wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely without source and no breakdown, but I read recently that their margins are in the 20-30% range.

In 2014 Elsevier's profit margin was 34% http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/93138f3e-87d6-11e5-90de-f44762bf98...

Wonder what the margin on their e-journals are like, vs printed journals.

They get the research papers for free, the editors don't get paid ... it's such a scam, and always has been.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#84

Post by dredmorbius »

I was interviewed for this article though not mentioned in it. My use case isn't mentioned: unaffiliated researchers with limited access to journals doing our own exploration of areas. I've compiled a library of several thousand articles (and via other sources, books) which for both access and portability I prefer electronic versions. My 10" tablet is almost perfect for reading printed material, and functions as a small research library on its own. (Organising this content is another headache -- Android and apps are sadly lacking in this area, one of the few options being Mendalay, owned by, you guessed it, Elsevier. Burn it with fire.)

While I can and do access materials from libraries, including online access, Sci-Hub is both more complete and far more reliable and convenient. Find a resource, plug in the URL or DOI, and I've got it. Versus locating the same reference independently through one of several distinct libraries, each with their own multiple subsystems, authenticating, and sometimes, sometimes not, securing the material.

Another point Bohannon failed to address, which is covered in the discussion here, is the role of journal publishers as gatekeepers not only to content but to careers. Academics, increasingly squeezed by budget retrenchments and awful working conditions[1], must publish through prestige journals in order to establish and advance their careers.

Journal publishers are rent-seeking at both ends of this channel.

Sci-Hub, or as I like to call it, the Library of Alexandra, hs a tour de force demonstration that information is a public good, and that information access wants, and needs to be free. Sci-Hub isn't a complete answer to the problems of current academic publishing (again: publish or perish), but it's a relief valve for many, and an absolute and irrefutable proof of the pressing demands for access.

________________________________

Notes:

1. See the amazingly awful story of a young newlywed biology postdoc who lost her arm in a lab explosion involving an improperly instrumented gas cylinder in which oxygen and hydrogen were being mixed under pressure. This after repeatedly reporting short circuits and electric shocks from the equipment.

http://chemjobber.blogspot.com/2016/03/postdoc-loses-arm-in-...

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#85

Post by philjohn »

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.

Luckily in the UK many libraries have access to BSO (British Standards Online), which allows you to view the standards in a DRM viewer as part of your free library membership.

It's not perfect, but it allowed me to implement an RFID data decoding library (ISO-28560) at my last job.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#86

Post by philjohn »

ryanlol wrote: post #29
Artoemius wrote: post #14

I'm sad Aaron Swartz did not live to see this unfolding. He might have been in prison now, but he would still be a world-class hero.

> He might have been in prison now For hypothetical crimes he could've committed had he lived? Because he certainly wouldn't be in prison for things he actually did.

He likely would be in Prison, because he'd be forced to plead out to lesser crimes, or face the prospect of a cripplingly expensive trial with the threat of higher sanctions.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#87

Post by VMG »

chris_wot wrote: post #59
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"…

Has anyone got a breakdown of actual costs incurred by Elsevier? Note I don't include marketing their journals, I mean a breakdown labour costs, rent for buildings (where the building are located) and other production costs. I'd like to know their revenue, and a full price list per journal they publish. I very much believe that if we looked at what they make in profits, we'll see that they can't justify how much they…

Wikipedia:

> In 2015, Elsevier reported a profit margin of approximately 37% on revenues of £2.070 billion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#89

Post by nailer »

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"…

I don't understand academia (genuinely):

Couldn't the researchers simply publish their own papers? Make torrents etc? Or are they prevented from doing that somehow?

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#90

Post by a_bonobo »

nailer wrote: post #89
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"…

I don't understand academia (genuinely): Couldn't the researchers simply publish their own papers? Make torrents etc? Or are they prevented from doing that somehow?

Your career is based on how "good" the journals are that you publish in.

If I publish a paper in Nature, Nature Genetics, Science, etc. then I can hand-pick my next position. The more glam-journals I publish in, the better my chances for tenure.

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