Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone • Hacker News Board

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#231

Post by mmierz » Fri, Apr 29, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

gautamdivgi wrote: post #225

Chathamization wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused by this. The researchers don't get paid for their paper, and it seems like the peer reviewers don't get paid for doing the peer review: http://www.nature.com/news/open-access-the-true-cost-of-scie... So why exactly are publications locking these papers behind massively expensive paywalls when writing them and reviewing them are being done for free?

You confuse two things. The main career goal of a researcher in academia is generally moving up to the tenure track. The method to measure this progress is typically a)publication in journals with a high impact factor and b) Being on the technical review committee of said journals. The reason researchers publish in these journals is it gives them street cred. There are several open access journals - but scanty partic…

Another important reason for slow adoption of open access is that most open access journals charge significant publication fees ($1000 or more.) Most academic labs run on shoestring budgets, so that's a lot of money. The principal investigator has to choose between standing on principle and publishing open access, or paying for equipment and reagents or sending students to conferences. That's not an easy choice to make, especially pre-tenure.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#232

Post by hanklazard » Fri, Apr 29, 2016, 2:35 PM UTC

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…

And that's not even taking into account the thousands of docs in the US who work out of private practices and community health centers.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#233

Post by akjj » Fri, Apr 29, 2016, 2:36 PM UTC

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…

I once looked into their financial statements and came to the conclusion that per article published, they had about $2500 in costs and $5000 in revenue, so 50% profit margins. If you look at the price of comparable PLoS journals (i.e. not PLoS ONE), the publication costs are also about $2500, so I think this is in the right ballpark.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#234

Post by rhino369 » Fri, Apr 29, 2016, 2:48 PM UTC

DarkContinent wrote: post #222

return0 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if they could (and they can publish their preprints), scientists rarely bother. That's because they want to communicate their science to people who matter to them (e.g. grant giving bodies), not to the general public.

Which raises the question of why we the taxpayers should be funding this research if it's not easily available for the public good.

I think it's a mistake to assume the general public must have access to the paper for it to advance the public good. A climate change paper does good even if the general public doesn't read it.

Furthermore, most of these papers are available to the public, just not online.

Many libraries have copies of the works.

I do think the pricing for non-institutional clients is absurd. Paying 30 bucks just to get past the abstract is nuts.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#235

Post by alceufc » Fri, Apr 29, 2016, 2:49 PM UTC

topstriker515 wrote: post #228

I'm not familiar with the procedure of publishing a paper, so please excuse my ignorance. What's preventing someone from submitting their work to publishers AND uploading it to an open access platform? They can rely on the journal for quality-review/validation/etc. while still allowing for wide dissemination.

Most journals require that the authors sign an agreement in which the publisher retains the copyright of the paper (e.g. [1]).

Although a few publishers allow the authors to provide a pdf of the paper in their personal home-page, they do allow it to be uploaded to an open access platform.

[1] https://www.elsevier.com/about/company-information/policies/...

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#236

Post by tzs » Fri, Apr 29, 2016, 2:50 PM UTC

finfet1 wrote: post #49

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 the…

Have you taken a look at deepdyve.com? $40/month ($30/month if bought as an annual subscription) for unlimited online access to a ton of journals, including a bazillion from IEEE: https://www.deepdyve.com/browse/publishers/ieee

If you create an account but do not subscribe, you can view all the papers but only for 5 minutes each. You can then subscribe to read the ones you need more of, or purchase access to 5 papers for $20.

The above is for online reading. If you need PDFs, you can purchase those but they are not cheap. They are usually what the publisher charges on the publisher's site less a 20% discount.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#237

Post by HelloNurse » Fri, Apr 29, 2016, 2:54 PM UTC

pron wrote: post #36

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-rein…

Reputation? If you publish in an Elsevier journal you are an asshole by association, and it's a safe assumption that you don't care about your article being read: a clear indicator of its real value.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#238

Post by kefka » Fri, Apr 29, 2016, 2:55 PM UTC

chris_wot wrote: post #104

donlzx wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After the IEEE $25 monthly service came out, I subscribed for three years until finally canceled it. Honestly most of the papers I downloaded were junks, the only reason I download them was to verify the available references. The paper quality declination plus publication quantity inflation are the main reasons in this "Sci-Hub" crisis.

This sounds like an increasingly commented on issue: there are now hundreds and hundreds of specialty journals, but quality is patchy. In fact, I think we may be seeing inherent problems coming to the fore now that journals are more focussed on profits: often there is publication bias towards certain topics; in other cases the bias is towards positive results and breakthroughs, with a lack of enthusiasm for publishin…

Wow.

I'm an occultist. One of the first regimens I did so to learn occultism was grounding and centering. It's very much an esoteric skill, and not something to be cited in a paper... unless it was being discussed under a 'microscope'.

I would enjoy in using fMRI or other diagnostic tools to see what physiologically happens when I do those things. But I have no qualms; that shouldn't be in any academic paper until my recommendation of measuring it is done.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#239

Post by chinathrow » Fri, Apr 29, 2016, 3:02 PM UTC

philjohn wrote: post #83

Blahah wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah and with that setup, 37% seams somehow very low. I wonder what accounting stunts they pull...

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#240

Post by bignis » Fri, Apr 29, 2016, 3:07 PM UTC

dalke wrote: post #172

Fuxy wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't we solved the quality issue in other situations by giving users the ability to rate a scientific paper. What's wrong with giving other researchers the ability to rate and comment on a paper. It's a not a perfect filter but I would argue it works just as well a this journal reputation system and it prevents issues like people having to publish with them to get recognized not to mention it encourages discussion…

"by giving users the ability to rate a scientific paper." LOL! No. Ratings are nearly useless. By which I mean I don't know how I would incorporate ratings into my own research. How do you keep a ratings system from being a proxy for popularity, rather than a measure of novelty or utility? How do you keep it from being easily gamed? Does a "5.2" for a 1995 paper have the same meaning as a "5.2" for a 2010 paper? "You…

Is it practical and desirable to have it both ways? Be published in a journal but also publish it on your own blog for free access?

So if you publish a paper titled "XYZ" in a journal and also put it on your blog, making sure your blog is visible to search engines - anyone searching for the paper's title "XYZ" will find it for free on your blog?

(I'm not involved with the science community)