This reminds me of Aaron Swartz's fight. People have made great sacrifices for this. Information that can lead to or enhance knowledge and learning shouldn't be behind closed doors.
Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers
31–40 of 166 posts
Re: Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers
#32The user experience really is just so good. Put in a paywalled link to a paper and out pops the PDF. I think the ease of use really contributes to its popularity a lot.
Re: Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my understanding, some people have donated their academic login credentials, effectively giving Sci-hub access to their institution's subscriptions. When somebody requests an article, Sci-hub will try and see if it already has it. If not, it will attempt to use some of the donated credentials to gain access, download it and store it for further download requests.
I will neither admit nor deny supplying my credentials to Sci-hub.
Keep up the good work.
Re: Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers
#34After I graduated I gave off the credentials to my university's online library to my sister, who studied at another university, which didn't have the proper literature even though its profile(agricultural engineering) was much closer to her field than mine(computer science/electrical engineering).
She should have had access to that literature without all this.
Re: Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers
#35For those who use Telegram, there is a Telegram bot, where you send it the DOI or the URL and it sends you the PDF -- so much easier than legally accessing the file.
What's the name of the bot?
Re: Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers
#36I wish we as scientific community could make some secure, anonymous, shared hosting work for this. With sci-hub as authority and everyone else being able to allocate as much of their local disk space for this.
edit: Before someone suggests IPFS: IPFS is not suitable. a) it is not anonymous and b) it duplicates everything for its block storage so you have to have twice the space...
Re: Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers
#37ELI5: I'm not from academia so please help me understand. Are researchers who publish these [firewalled/copyrighted] papers likely to lose out on their earnings if this is 'open-sourced'? I'm honestly asking as I try to think through the whole 'open-source' paradigm and how it fits in a (mostly) capitalist, libertarian world. Thanks!
Researchers get paid salaries by their institution. They are not paid for their publications directly, nor for reviewing or editing. All the money from journal subscriptions, book sales and per-article download fees go to the publishers of the journals.
No need to be paid directly when the indirect dollar-value of publication in the right journal can be six figures or more. With such incentive, it's no wonder many researchers skew their work towards whatever increases their chance of publication; dreaming of a Nobel Prize (apparently many in academia spend a lot of time fantasizing about it).
Re: Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers
#38ELI5: I'm not from academia so please help me understand. Are researchers who publish these [firewalled/copyrighted] papers likely to lose out on their earnings if this is 'open-sourced'? I'm honestly asking as I try to think through the whole 'open-source' paradigm and how it fits in a (mostly) capitalist, libertarian world. Thanks!
1. You produce novel research. 2. You submit novel research to the best journal you think will publish it. 3. The editor (the only person involved actually paid by the journal) invites other researchers to volunteer their time to peer review your research. 4. Assuming your research bears up under scrutiny and the peer reviewers are not actually competitors who decide to filibuster (this happens), your paper passes pe…
Thanks, that makes it clearer for me (non-academic) to understand. It does astound me how much control the 'journals' have over the academic research world!
Re: Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my understanding, some people have donated their academic login credentials, effectively giving Sci-hub access to their institution's subscriptions. When somebody requests an article, Sci-hub will try and see if it already has it. If not, it will attempt to use some of the donated credentials to gain access, download it and store it for further download requests.
I will neither admit nor deny supplying my credentials to Sci-hub.
I don't think you'll have to. Both hidden and conspicuous watermarks are common in trade book PDF downloads. RIAA members poisoned the Bit Torrent well.
I'm neutral on the matter, but there are some obvious paths of recourse for publishers who don't want people sharing their credentials.
(Disclaimer: I work for Crossref, which is an organisation in the scholarly publishing space.)
Re: Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers
#40ELI5: I'm not from academia so please help me understand. Are researchers who publish these [firewalled/copyrighted] papers likely to lose out on their earnings if this is 'open-sourced'? I'm honestly asking as I try to think through the whole 'open-source' paradigm and how it fits in a (mostly) capitalist, libertarian world. Thanks!
There can be some minuscule royalties, but by and large academic publishers are reviled for predatory practices. They get close to free content. They get free services from peer reviewers (the essential basis of what they're selling). They charge vast sums to educational libraries for access. They charge ludicrous per-article fees for any member of the public who has the temerity to wish to read about any of the rese…
Supposedly the Journal of Co-ordination Chemistry costs $11,367 per year, 24 issues [1].
[1] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/information-culture/why...
https://svpow.com/2012/01/13/the-obscene-profits-of-commerci...