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Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

sciencemag.org

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Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#111

Post by kqr »

skoczymroczny wrote: post #98
abhi3 wrote: post #9

While pirating music or movies, one may try justify ones actions, but deep down it feels wrong. This doesn't even feel wrong. These parasites had it coming.

I don't feel wrong pirating music or movies (especially considering it's legal in my country). I think trying to apply laws of limited amounts of goods (physical objects) to unlimited amount of goods (digital files) is silly.

The laws are silly, I think we all agree on that. The big record labels are silly, most of us probably agree on that too.

It still feels wrong when popular artists do not get paid for their work because it's more convenient for people to pirate it.

I mean, creative/artistic efforts take a lot of time, regardless of how easy reproducible the results are. By paying for their previous songs, you're basically funding their next songs, something you should be interested in as a fan.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#112

Post by chris_wot »

jrapdx3 wrote: post #94
chris_wot wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, so if doctors weren't to pirate they wouldn't remain abreast? That sounds like yet another disservice from the publishing industry. They are indirectly decreasing people's health. Fantastic.

Many years ago hospital systems employed librarians who acquired articles for medical staff. Costs associated with maintaining a library were at least partially offset by fees physicians paid to be "on staff" at a hospital (or group of them). BTW those fees were typically on the order of several hundred dollars/year. Of course, among small-medium size hospital systems the libraries are long gone. Some of the largest…

Even more ironically, the actual distribution mechanism is hundreds of times less expensive, more efficient and rapid way of providing access to the material!

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#113

Post by Blahah »

secfirstmd wrote: post #93
Blahah wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hmmm...it seems like the space is ready to be disrupted. How might that look? I mean purely publishing isnt just ideal as it lacks the so-called quality control and prestige of established publications. What might be a middle ground for disrupting this crappy monopoly on the world's knowledge?

Personally, I think it has at least these important aspects:

- built on a foundation of open source software

- new ways of presenting and consuming should be encouraged and easily discoverable

- completely outside the influence of the current publishing industry

There's a community of us working on this stuff. We hang out on gitter (https://gitter.im/codeforscience/community).

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#114

Post by ryanlol »

idm wrote: post #109
ryanlol wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's complete bullshit. Had Aaron pleaded guilty, he'd be out by now as both of the plea agreements he was offered would have meant 6 months or less . And trial? Why would he have gone to trial? There was no question of his guilt.

While he might have been free by now, he would still have been labeled a felon.

I don't think anyone was questioning that.

Also FWIW, so am I and it's not all that bad.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#115

Post by chris_wot »

mirimir wrote: post #95
chris_wot wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a source for that? I believe you, I'm just interested in the degree!

I based my comment on memory. As I recall, reprints cost on the order of $0.50 each in the early 80s. Based on http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ that's about $1.20 in present dollars. That's a lot less than $30.

Bloody hell. So we are looking at a 2,000% increasing since the 80s?

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#116

Post by Vespasian »

oarsinsync wrote: post #96
a_bonobo wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you cross-publish / self-publish as well?

It depends on the venue.

In my field of computer science (visual analytics / visualizations) at least some of the leading journals/conferences officially allow you to put a version of the paper on your website.

Just today we submitted a paper where the copyright form explicitly mentions that.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#117

Post by Fiahil »

One of the many problems we have as humans and citizens of the world, is our dependence on US laws. It's not like it's cataclysmic-bad but there are some issues that would greatly benefit, to the rest of the world, from a little push by US citizens on US law makers (It's not like we can do something about it, we're not invited to the conversation).

This is one of them.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#118

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

a_bonobo wrote: post #90
nailer wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is why the scam is so insidious. The journals are really squatting on academic output so they can be gatekeepers of academic status and of career prospects.

The product of publishing isn't the dissemination of insight and innovation, but of gold stars academics can put on their resumes.

Sci-Hub doesn't just threaten copyright, but the entire status factory.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#119

Post by kuschku »

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?

Many researchers do so – but the established magazines are used for evaluating the quality of a researcher, and also used for ranking universities.

You might notice that universities which recommend to their researchers to self-publish do not even show up in any university ranking.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#120

Post by chris_wot »

dalke wrote: post #92
nailer wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Journals are used as a proxy for quality. A publication in "Science" or "Nature" is generally regarded as being better than a publication in, say, the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Science". Bibliographic metrics, like the number of publications and where they are published, are use as a proxy for the quality of someone's research. It can affect grant funding and career advancement. Researchers can publish…

If we were to work out what makes a journal so prestigious, what are the objective measures that should be considered?
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