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Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

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Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#321

Post by nkurz »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #286
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 am with you, since pretty much any scientist would love to be cited by another's research, any scientist will send you a copy of their paper if you ask them for it. And since the creator of the work is willing to give it away to you for free, it cannot possibly be "piracy".

And since the creator of the work is willing to give it away to you for free, it cannot possibly be "piracy".

My client (who will remain unnamed) insists that I advocate for his position: Just as a work-for-hire belongs to the party who paid the creator, surely it matters that the creator signed a contract with a publisher giving up rights to distribute the work in return for invaluable services? Are you implying that the creator retains some sort of "moral right" to distribute copies of the work to whomever despite the explicit stipulations of the contract?

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#322

Post by ChuckMcM »

nkurz wrote: post #321
ChuckMcM wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am with you, since pretty much any scientist would love to be cited by another's research, any scientist will send you a copy of their paper if you ask them for it. And since the creator of the work is willing to give it away to you for free, it cannot possibly be "piracy".

And since the creator of the work is willing to give it away to you for free, it cannot possibly be "piracy". My client (who will remain unnamed) insists that I advocate for his position: Just as a work-for-hire belongs to the party who paid the creator, surely it matters that the creator signed a contract with a publisher giving up rights to distribute the work in return for invaluable services? Are you implying tha…

You might ask your client to consider whether or not the contract the author signed was under duress when the contract was signed. It is well known that publishing in "impactful" journals is a pre-requisite for academic advancement and success, failing to sign that contract would do grave economic and reputational harm to the author. The journal, taking advantage of the pressure being applied by the author's employer, exploits that advantage to achieve an unearned and involuntarily given economic benefit at the cost of the author.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#323

Post by slavik81 »

Chinjut wrote: post #254
notahacker wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A rating system would generally become an indicator of other academics' level of agreement with a paper, rather than an indication that it passed a quality and significance threshold. Citation ranking schemes already exist, but the citation counts are heavily influenced by academics being unable to NOT mention a dissenting view because it was recently published in a prominent journal. And I'm not sure examples like A…

Does pre-publication "peer review" not already function to some extent similarly as an indicator of level of agreement rather than a disinterested, objective quality and significance threshold? Everything I know of human processes suggests that it would.

I worry that a rating system would reduce the amount of thought each reviewer puts into their decision, but it's certainly true that peer review isn't perfect. Famously, the Fourier transform was not published for several years due to a disagreement with Lagrange.

> When Fourier submitted his paper in 1807, the committee (which included Lagrange, Laplace, Malus and Legendre, among others) concluded: ...the manner in which the author arrives at these equations is not exempt of difficulties and [...] his analysis to integrate them still leaves something to be desired on the score of generality and even rigour.

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

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#325

Post by qiqing »

3pt14159 wrote: post #242
finfet1 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you live in a city with a University, like Toronto, check out getting a library card to their library system. It costs me $300 / year and it's unlimited research papers. The only downside is that it is retrievable in person only, so you kinda need to be either close to the University or keep a list of papers you need before you make the trek out.

What if your city doesn't have that?

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#326

Post by DaveWalk »

comicjk wrote: post #213
dalke wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'd like to point out that a journal is not purely a proxy or even an aggregator - I've gotten more detailed peer review with the bigger journals, because the reviewers are more critical and the editors more selective. I didn't start out as a fan of peer review, but now I say the more the better; it has markedly increased the quality of all of my papers which have undergone it.

I really like your counter argument, focusing on the process instead of the output. However I have to ask: isn't the end goal of submitting a manuscript to get recognition for it? Do you genuinely hope every time that your submission will be mercilessly torn apart and possibly rejected instead of getting the recognition for the work you've done?

Truly I have seen article reviews ruin a budding research scientist's career. Of course one could argue that other problems contribute to finding themselves in that position.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#327

Post by alphydan »

dikaiosune wrote: post #258
dalke wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

> 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? To respond to this particular point, I'm not familiar with any characteristics of the academic journal system which prevent these problems either. Name recognition is often key to getting into competitive journals, which is just another way of calling it an eas…

Popularity plays a role. Here's a real life example: One of my quantum physics mentors submitted a paper to PRL (a high prestige physics journal) and it was rejected. Why? Because it came from a small, rather unknown university in Spain.

He was later admitted to Cambridge for a PhD and sent the exact same paper (same formatting, content, layout but different department/uni). It was immediately accepted. Does it necessarily mean that scientists in poorer countries are doing bad science? Or just that they didn't get their visa / couldn't leave their country / just want to stay there, etc.

The first filter most editors use is: "Do I know this research group? Are they part of the club? Have they published in top journals?". If not, it won't get read (unless it's a compelling and exciting title and abstract).

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#328

Post by aswanson »

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…

I recognized what a scam IEEE was my first year of grad school. So many fees, sub-society fees, transaction fees...something themselves indeed. Many times over.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#329

Post by Laforet »

brohee wrote: post #188
Laforet wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've just had a paper accepted last week in a traditional journal (peer-reviewed and paywalled) and I'd share a few things I know and feel about scientific publishing from an anthor's perspective. The publisher provide a valuable service to authors. Their online submission protal was a joy to use and their staff very friendly and responsive. Once a panel has decided that my submission was at least fit for further con…

In many disciplines, authors do the typesetting, the publisher only really handle the peer review coordination (reviewers themselves are not paid)...

Yes, this is something new for me as well and I was more than impressed with the quality of their work.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#330

Post by Hondor »

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.

This is why it's a lopsided to blame the publishers. Look at the incentives:

Whether publishers give away their papers openly can make or break their business.

Where researchers publish in open or closed journals can make or break their careers.

Which journals libraries subscribe to can make or break their .. librarian's careers? Hopefully this link in the chain gets broken by Sci-Hub.

As an analogy, people who pay protection money or bribes are still part of the corruption and the mafia or corrupt politicians couldn't function without their support.

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