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Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers

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Re: Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers

#111

Post by patall »

paulhilbert wrote: post #17

For heavy users (like me) I suggest using one of many "implementations" of a auto-scihub bookmark here: https://github.com/nfahlgren/scihub_bookmark It is a great addition to an otherwise clean tor-browser... This is not mine - but looking at the code you should notice fairly quickly that it is somehow trivial. Note also that it may be necessary to change the URL if necessary. Lastly it should be said that sci-hub do…

I prefer the custom search approach over bookmarks: I have scihub as custom search with 'sh' as key word, so I go to the address bar (Ctrl+L or similar), and type {left}sh{space}{enter}

Re: Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers

#112

Post by snowpanda »

afandian wrote: post #39
dotdi wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Does only Crossref do this?

I'm asking because a friend of mine who's enrolled in 2 colleges, just downloaded the same scholarly PDF (one that's also available through sci-hub) with 2 different college credentials and they had the same sha256sum.

Then when he tried it through sci-hub, he also got the same sha256sum.

Re: Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers

#113

Post by kevhito »

superasn wrote: post #67
Athas wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all fields suffer from this to the same degree. For example, I am a fledgling computing scientist. I mostly publish in ACM-related conferences and workshops, where ACM is an organisation run by and for academics and professionals in the computing field, not a for-profit publisher. My submission experience is: 1. You produce novel research. 2. You submit novel research to the best conference or workshop you think…

So does the piracy affect you? Are you in favor of sites like sci-hub?

(not parent)

Yes! As an author of many CS conference papers, a few CS journal papers, and a few papers in other related fields, piracy affects me. It has been entirely beneficial, and I completely support sci-hub.

Collaborators, other authors, and other researchers have been able to read and find my work more cheaply and easily than they otherwise would have. Some would not have paid to buy my papers sight unseen. Some can't afford to buy them. A larger audience is always good for me.

I have also never directly earned even a single cent from any published work of mine. No royalties, no copyright payments, no publisher payments, etc. And I've paid thousands to publishers over the years to publish my own work.

Re: Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers

#114

Post by Typhon »

afandian wrote: post #39
dotdi wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

In any case, some researchers have claimed that Sci-Hub obtained their credentials through phishing. I don't know if it's true but in any case, such claims provide plausible deniability against that kind of watermarking proof, don't they ?

Re: Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers

#115

Post by JohnStrange »

superasn wrote: post #67
Athas wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all fields suffer from this to the same degree. For example, I am a fledgling computing scientist. I mostly publish in ACM-related conferences and workshops, where ACM is an organisation run by and for academics and professionals in the computing field, not a for-profit publisher. My submission experience is: 1. You produce novel research. 2. You submit novel research to the best conference or workshop you think…

So does the piracy affect you? Are you in favor of sites like sci-hub?

As a scientist, I am unambiguously in favor of Sci-Hub and similar sites.

We want and need to disseminate our results as much as possible and the paywalls are getting more and more in our way. You won't find many scientists who are against Sci-Hub - maybe a few at some unusually rich universities of some very rich countries that pay $500 for a color graphics and the $2500-$3000 fee per article for them that makes the publication "open access".

Poorer countries cannot afford the journal subscriptions either, because these can be exorbitantly high - so high, that even top universities have to limit access. I stumble almost daily over a journal to which my institute doesn't have access. Before the advent of Sci-Hub, we often had to ask colleagues abroad on mailing lists for (technically illegal!) copies of articles to be able to conduct our research.

Re: Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers

#116

Post by azangru »

Typhon wrote: post #106
azangru wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, not really. Sci-Hub has a founder. A founder that may be sometimes be a benevolent dictator, and sometimes not. For example, very recently, this very founder got offended by Russian social media, in which some academics said something unflattering about her, and a biologist apparently named a newly discovered species of parasitic wasp after her. So she blocked Sci-Hub for all Russian IPs. For about a week. And…

All websites have founders and personality. Since you mention the PirateBay, they were a team with a rather snarky sense of humour. Archive.org is run by a foundation. There are always people and there's always legal responsibility. In any case, Sci-Hub is really "everything that is good about the internet" because it's a way to make scientific knowledge accessible anywhere to anyone, in a way that was never possible…

There is something wrong with a service when access to it is conditional on the opinion about its founder voiced by some part of the population of a country. I can’t but feel that it goes against the spirit of freedom and empowerment that _is_ everything that’s good about the internet.

(I do not dispute the usefulness of SciHub, or the good that it’s doing for the netizens, or maybe for society in general. I’m just saying that it has this one thing against it, and that, for being a representative of everything that’s good, it’s pretty important.)

Re: Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers

#117

Post by quickthrower2 »

chii wrote: post #101
azangru wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, not really. Sci-Hub has a founder. A founder that may be sometimes be a benevolent dictator, and sometimes not. For example, very recently, this very founder got offended by Russian social media, in which some academics said something unflattering about her, and a biologist apparently named a newly discovered species of parasitic wasp after her. So she blocked Sci-Hub for all Russian IPs. For about a week. And…

> To represent everything that is good about the internet, Sci-Hub should have been impersonal. despite the fact that blocking people is "wrong", the good thing about the internet is that it's _allowed_! The internet isn't built on some moral/ethics - it shouldn't have one. It should remain something that anyone can get on, anyone can do anything on, and noone has the power to dictate behaviour.

Yep you block me, I VPN. All par of the game.

Re: Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers

#118

Post by snowpanda »

userbinator wrote: post #102
3131s wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but it's huge. At one time you could torrent it piece by piece but now the link appears broken... http://libgen.io/scimag/repository_torrent_notforall/ Anyone have the current link? Good luck extracting much of anything useful out of older PDFs though.

This? http://libgen.io/scimag/repository_torrent/ I'm not sure what the numbers mean, but the last-modified dates on those torrents span a range of 3 years ago to this month.

I could have sworn they were uploaded to usenet too. But I can't find it for the life of me.

Re: Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers

#119

Post by JohnStrange »

ruc0la wrote: post #54

Just wondering, what if I use this way to obtain papers for my thesis? Do I have to worry about it?

No, you don't have to worry about it, as long as you confirm the authenticity of the documents. Cross-check with the preview of the original publisher to confirm that it's not a preprint or otherwise non-citable.

Re: Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers

#120

Post by mannigfaltig »

fiala__ wrote: post #71

The only thing that worries me about SciHub is the fact that according to her Wikipedia article, the founder shows the exact symptoms of a freedom fighter turned Putin's mouthpiece, similar to Assange etc. I have a problem with academic freedom being preached from hotel rooms paid for by the most repressive, warmongering and manipulative regime in Europe.

How is Assange Putin’s mouthpiece?
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