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Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

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Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#81

Post by hackuser »

paulmd wrote: post #75
hackuser wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you aren't going to get charged What is this based on? If it's rationality, that doesn't always apply to legal and political matters, to the very human human beings who make those decisions, or to the politial situation around them.

Using Tor isn't a crime, but the NSA targets people who use or even search about Tor or VPN services for collection through the XKEYSCORE program. So his post is exactly right - using Tor does "put you on a list", but that alone isn't sufficient to be arrested. The NSA documents further state that Tor is relatively difficult to attack and the best they can do is deanonymize a small (and importantly, random) fraction…

I'm familiar with that theory, but do you have any data to support it? For example, maybe they will find another reason to arrest you; maybe they will cite your Tor usage to the judge, jury and public as evidence of your criminal nature.

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#82

Post by Lawtonfogle »

atemerev wrote: post #5

While I support open science and Sci-Hub is great, I also can see publisher's side. Imagine the same site with pirated high quality scientific books. (There are some, but in darker corners of the Internet). Would open access to these books be advantageous for humanity? Most definitely. Will publishers get mad about it? Even more definitely. Should publisher's work be free? I think not. However, you can't get both sid…

>Imagine the same site with pirated high quality scientific books.

Imagine if publishers went and banned libraries, because only those who can afford books should be allowed to read them.

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#83

Post by hyperion2010 »

chias wrote: post #45

I feel a little tingle of excitement seeing my own papers on Sci-Hub. I mean I get that they're trying to index all publications so it's not a "stamp or approval" or anything... but it does mean that people can actually access the knowledge I tried to throw into the world, which was kind of the whole point in doing it. I'd update my academic website to link my papers to their sci-hub URLs if I didn't think I'd catch…

These days you can just post the dois and mention scihub somewhere innocuous. The readers will figure it out and I'd love to see the publishers win when there is no direct link to the papers.

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#84

Post by krapp »

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #82
atemerev wrote: post #5

While I support open science and Sci-Hub is great, I also can see publisher's side. Imagine the same site with pirated high quality scientific books. (There are some, but in darker corners of the Internet). Would open access to these books be advantageous for humanity? Most definitely. Will publishers get mad about it? Even more definitely. Should publisher's work be free? I think not. However, you can't get both sid…

>Imagine the same site with pirated high quality scientific books. Imagine if publishers went and banned libraries, because only those who can afford books should be allowed to read them.

Libraries pay for their books, which is why they have the legal right to lend them.

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#85

Post by dceddia »

ptaipale wrote: post #66
refurb wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exact work these publishers are doing? Typesetting, third party review, offering visibility in a high quality journal? The point is nothing is stopping scientists from publishing in other, open source journals. But they don't. That means these journals offer something of value to them.

Typesetting by publisher is not valuable at this age. Elsevier seems keen to not have third parties review the publications. And visibility, same thing. They try to prevent it. Yes, scientists should publish elsewhere; the contracts currently prevent them as Elsevier has power to stop them through their entrenched legacy position.

What prevents a group of scientists from setting up doingscience.io or whatever, and publishing their results to a big shared blog? Do the contracts stipulate that their findings can only be published in specific paid journals?

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#86

Post by NoGravitas »

lake99 wrote: post #21
wolfgke wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does using Tor puts you on some kind of list? It would be tragic if someone used Tor to read a scientific article but then got charged with aiding terrorism or looking for child pornography. If it does, it becomes an ethical maxim to use Tor. If it doesn't, then you can simply use Tor. So by case analysis you should use Tor.

> If it does, it becomes an ethical maxim to use Tor. This is one of the reasons I use Tor. If there is such a list, I want it to be full of people doing ordinary stuff. In effect, I want the list to be useless.

Indeed, this is the main reason I'm using Signal (and badgering my friends into using it). I want to increase the volume of encrypted non-sensitive stuff, so that the "list" doesn't have predictive value.

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#87

Post by omegaham »

chias wrote: post #45

I feel a little tingle of excitement seeing my own papers on Sci-Hub. I mean I get that they're trying to index all publications so it's not a "stamp or approval" or anything... but it does mean that people can actually access the knowledge I tried to throw into the world, which was kind of the whole point in doing it. I'd update my academic website to link my papers to their sci-hub URLs if I didn't think I'd catch…

This reminds me of that old Steve Martin movie, The Jerk, where the protagonist finds out that he's in the phone book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7aIf1YnbbU

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#88

Post by chris_wot »

I wonder if there is a way of distributing a signed file that contains the IP address of sci-hub over a distributed medium?

Someone else would just need to write a small script that copied it into the system's host file - but make it generic enough that it works for anything. That would help non-technical users.

This would stop courts from going after centralised name servers.

There really needs to be a way of decentralising name servers.

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#89

Post by therobot24 »

finfet1 wrote: post #80
chias wrote: post #45

I feel a little tingle of excitement seeing my own papers on Sci-Hub. I mean I get that they're trying to index all publications so it's not a "stamp or approval" or anything... but it does mean that people can actually access the knowledge I tried to throw into the world, which was kind of the whole point in doing it. I'd update my academic website to link my papers to their sci-hub URLs if I didn't think I'd catch…

IEEE and IEEE Explore have been actively going after professors and forcing them to take down links to their own papers. In the past, many professors hosted pdf's on their websites for their papers -- this has only stopped because IEEE has been forcing them off. Just wanted to add this for those who think professors have 'suddenly become stingy' -- no, they aren't - they were forced to.

i haven't heard this, this is interesting any links with more info?

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#90

Post by gradschool »

maxerickson wrote: post #72
gradschool wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you aware that unlike musicians, academic researchers don't get paid royalties on their publications? A list of prestigious publications on one's cv leads to funding and job opportunities regardless of whether anyone pays to read them.

Lots of academics are collecting royalties on books. Typically not large royalties, but they are collecting them.

Yes, that's a fair point. I was thinking only of journal articles and conference proceedings. One way of making money off textbooks is to be a professor in an institution with a large number of students and make them a requirement for the course. It also helps to make a few small changes every year and call it a new edition, so each year the next class of students has to buy new ones instead of used copies from the previous year's class. I question whether this practice is worth defending.
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