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Sci-Hub as Necessary, Effective Civil Disobedience

bjoern.brembs.net

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Re: Sci-Hub as Necessary, Effective Civil Disobedience

#121

Post by crawfordcomeaux »

jonathanstrange wrote: post #61
erikpukinskis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless and until a significant portion of the tenure committees of major academic institutions changes their selection criteria, this will not change. Couldn't the top tier of Post-docs also make this happen? If they simply refuse to publish in the top tier journals, the departments who are competing for them will have to either relax their publishing requirements or take a 2nd tier candidate. This only works if a…

It's a classic collective decision problem. If almost all postdocs at the same time decided to boycott closed journals, then this would work. However, in practice solutions are always failing whenever they are based on the idea that a majority has to voluntarily make the right move within a short time period, if that means smaller wins for people who do not make the move. To give another example of such a problem: If…

What if it's "kickstarted" with people pledging to submit papers to only a select few publishers once a critical mass of pledges have been received?

Re: Sci-Hub as Necessary, Effective Civil Disobedience

#122

Post by Bartweiss »

dredmorbius wrote: post #2

So long as we're looking at intellectual property, and arguments against it: An online book by UCLA economics professors Michele Boldrin and Mark Levine, making the case against intellectual property -- patents, and copyright most especially. The opening chapter leads off with the patent battles of James Watt, which are credited by some authors with setting back the start date of the Industrial Revolution from 1769,…

Interesting side note: the book itself is copyright Cambridge University Press. The authors have a free version accessible online and a promise to keep it that way, but seemingly no open license on it.

I don't blame them, probably not much choice to get a decent print run, but it's an interesting display of how pervasive copyright is.

Re: Sci-Hub as Necessary, Effective Civil Disobedience

#123

Post by sophacles »

IshKebab wrote: post #82
quickben wrote: post #37

This round is going to be fun. See, I'm old enough to remember this battle starting for music and movies. We know how that ended. But now, it's for the very knowledge that drives our civilization. "Stallman was right", oh how that statement is going to get tested.

This is quite different to music and film for a variety of reasons: 1. Film and music were always vaguely reasonably priced, and collecting a fee is totally reasonable - at least some of the money goes to the creators. This is not true for papers. The authors are never paid and the prices are insane. 2. Music & videos are luxuries, and are also somewhat fungible. If you need a specific paper (e.g. because it was refe…

In addition I think point 0 should be:

0. A huge amount of this research is publicly funded, and access to results is something we've already paid for via taxes.

Re: Sci-Hub as Necessary, Effective Civil Disobedience

#124

Post by euyyn »

vanderZwan wrote: post #112
IshKebab wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is quite different to music and film for a variety of reasons: 1. Film and music were always vaguely reasonably priced, and collecting a fee is totally reasonable - at least some of the money goes to the creators. This is not true for papers. The authors are never paid and the prices are insane. 2. Music & videos are luxuries, and are also somewhat fungible. If you need a specific paper (e.g. because it was refe…

Regarding point 4: piracy has provided the ability to masses to a wealth of obscure, hard to find cultural gems. I for example am into animation. There is no way I would have been able to access, legal or otherwise, half of the films I have seen, many of which are cultural milestones in the history of animation. Also, in wealth terms, if you start with the reasonable assumption that a pirated copy doesn't directly tr…

> if you start with the reasonable assumption that a pirated copy doesn't directly translate to a sales loss

I think the reasonable assumption is that it translates on average to a fraction of a sale loss; less than one, but more than zero.

Re: Sci-Hub as Necessary, Effective Civil Disobedience

#125

Post by urethrafranklin »

dsacco wrote: post #93
fnord123 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>See, I'm old enough to remember this battle starting for music and movies. We know how that ended. Extremely affordable all you can eat subscription models?

With the caveat that most people no longer own any media, and merely rent access to it under DRM terms.

So what?

Re: Sci-Hub as Necessary, Effective Civil Disobedience

#126

Post by rhizome »

dredmorbius wrote: post #75
rhizome wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See also: WestLaw[1] and, in opposition, Carl Malamud[2]. 1. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/West_Publishing_Co._v._Mead_D... . 2. http://www.usglassmag.com/2016/01/cases-shed-light-on-copyri...

NB, your Wikisource reference doesn't hit any specific document.

Right, it's two court opinions.

Re: Sci-Hub as Necessary, Effective Civil Disobedience

#127

Post by dsacco »

urethrafranklin wrote: post #125
dsacco wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the caveat that most people no longer own any media, and merely rent access to it under DRM terms.

So what?

Some people have strong opinions about media ownership and DRM. For that set of people, what I mentioned is just that: a caveat.

Re: Sci-Hub as Necessary, Effective Civil Disobedience

#128

Post by crawfordcomeaux »

crawfordcomeaux wrote: post #121
jonathanstrange wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a classic collective decision problem. If almost all postdocs at the same time decided to boycott closed journals, then this would work. However, in practice solutions are always failing whenever they are based on the idea that a majority has to voluntarily make the right move within a short time period, if that means smaller wins for people who do not make the move. To give another example of such a problem: If…

What if it's "kickstarted" with people pledging to submit papers to only a select few publishers once a critical mass of pledges have been received?

And maybe they pledge by providing a paper they're withholding from publishing? If the authors, pledging platform, and open journals collaboratively design & coordinate a process for handling the reviewing of said papers, then the process can safely be automated. Also, pledging can be done as a pledge to be available for free peer review if they aren't pledging a paper.

Re: Sci-Hub as Necessary, Effective Civil Disobedience

#129

Post by jl6 »

quickben wrote: post #37

This round is going to be fun. See, I'm old enough to remember this battle starting for music and movies. We know how that ended. But now, it's for the very knowledge that drives our civilization. "Stallman was right", oh how that statement is going to get tested.

It really doesn't feel like the story of music and movie rights has ended. I can still see many plausible and distinct outcomes.

Re: Sci-Hub as Necessary, Effective Civil Disobedience

#130

Post by tomjen3 »

KGIII wrote: post #116
tomjen3 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Math is one thing. I did a lot of research into bio to check if Aspartame was dangerous, and while I didn't understand everything I was able to gleam enough. I have also read many psycology papers, never had a problem with them.

Excellent. Again, I don't ever want to discourage learning. I just know many will not. That and, well, some of it can be pretty rough to digest. But, absolutely keep reading, learning, growing, and sharing. I'm just not going to publish with the general public being the intended audience. On the other hand, I'm more than happy to try to explain stuff, for those who are curious. I'd never discourage a citizen scientis…

Oh I didn't think you wanted to discourage anybody - I just wanted to point out that of the different sciencies theoretical math is probably the most difficult for an outsider to get and psychology is surprisingly easy.
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