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US Court Grants ISPs and Search Engine Blockade of Sci-Hub

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Re: US Court Grants ISPs and Search Engine Blockade of Sci-Hub

#61

Post by seer »

Knufen wrote: post #5

As someone who works in academia (Europe) I understand that scientific papers need hosting and server space and such, but does it really help humanity that all advances will be behind very expensive pay walls? I would argue otherwise. The current trend is not sustainable nor favorable for anyone except parasitic publishers. Edit: I understand the website was breaking the law, but this seems like symptom treating

I never understood the argument of “we’ll block this website that host papers because we need revenue to host those papers”. I mean, if you want papers to be hosted just leave people to host them... There might be other arguments and I don’t really find most of them valid as well, but the one about hosting costs just sounds ... absurd

Re: US Court Grants ISPs and Search Engine Blockade of Sci-Hub

#62

Post by lisper »

Knufen wrote: post #5

As someone who works in academia (Europe) I understand that scientific papers need hosting and server space and such, but does it really help humanity that all advances will be behind very expensive pay walls? I would argue otherwise. The current trend is not sustainable nor favorable for anyone except parasitic publishers. Edit: I understand the website was breaking the law, but this seems like symptom treating

> scientific papers need hosting and server space and such

The cost of such things is trivial. A typical article is <<1GB. The cost of storing a GB is about 10 cents at today's prices. If you charged each author $1 to publish a paper you would cover the costs with a 90% profit margin.

Re: US Court Grants ISPs and Search Engine Blockade of Sci-Hub

#63

Post by stale2002 »

cobookman wrote: post #38
remus wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't forget the peer review and vetting process. Which is almost universally done for free by the editorial/review panel for the given journal. > As for the price I don't think it's really that expensive. I've never heard of a research University unable to afford it. It would be nice if everyone had access to research, not just those who happen to work in organisations with deep enough pockets. > And if not for th…

Sounds like you should start your own free journal. That's the easiest and fastest way of getting these papers out for free.

Someone did. It's called Sci-Hub.

Re: US Court Grants ISPs and Search Engine Blockade of Sci-Hub

#64

Post by stale2002 »

anigbrowl wrote: post #47
mattmanser wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This presents some pretty extreme view points as if they're perfectly reasonable. I doubt you could find any member of the public who would say "Yes" if asked "Should research you paid for cost you money to read?". No reasonable person would agree with the rules as they are if they were introduced today, we got here because it's not an election issue and special interests and lobbyists have distorted rules written ce…

It's descriptive, not prescriptive. Rayiner isn't endorsing the law itself, he's just telling you how it operates. People often seem to have trouble distinguishing between positive statements ('this is how things work') and normative statements ('this is how things ought to work.') I agree with you that the laws are corrupt and should be changed, but that's going to involve refactoring the entire legal system on diff…

We don't need to rewrite anything.

Instead, just start breaking laws that are corrupt, like copyrite laws, and eventually they will be unenforceable.

Copyright laws are already mostly unenforceable against individuals.

Laws only work because society mostly follows them. The ones that people DON'T follow, may as well not even exist.

Re: US Court Grants ISPs and Search Engine Blockade of Sci-Hub

#65

Post by imglorp »

dmix wrote: post #23
Knufen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As for the price I don't think it's really that expensive. There are multiple universities spending millions upon millions (which could be used to further science), to buy subscriptions for all the journals. I know my university spends 10 mil euroes a year. And it's not only about pricing, it's the general trend of commercialising research which should benefint all of humanity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier…

Who does this money go to? Does a percentage go back to the scientists who write the papers?

I think the only value-add is the prestige of a given journal. So, just brand.

The other comments are saying it's minimal publishing, peer review, and hosting costs. Oh and they spend a bunch on lawyers obviously.

Re: US Court Grants ISPs and Search Engine Blockade of Sci-Hub

#66

Post by Bedon292 »

stale2002 wrote: post #63
cobookman wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you should start your own free journal. That's the easiest and fastest way of getting these papers out for free.

Someone did. It's called Sci-Hub.

Sci-Hub is not a Journal itself. It is hosting other Journals' data. However https://www.plos.org/ does exist and it is a free to access Journal. Unfortunately it is pay to publish. I am unaware of any completely free Journal on both the reader and author end.

Re: US Court Grants ISPs and Search Engine Blockade of Sci-Hub

#67

Post by mnm1 »

I fail to see how the injunction is not a violation of the first amendment right of search engines and ISPs to display any legal content they want--and we are talking about legal content here (links). It is clearly improper under DMCA, but it seems to me such injunctions are simply unconstitutional, DMCA or not. Anyone care to explain the twisted logic of the court here?

Re: US Court Grants ISPs and Search Engine Blockade of Sci-Hub

#68

Post by stanfordkid »

stale2002 wrote: post #64
anigbrowl wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's descriptive, not prescriptive. Rayiner isn't endorsing the law itself, he's just telling you how it operates. People often seem to have trouble distinguishing between positive statements ('this is how things work') and normative statements ('this is how things ought to work.') I agree with you that the laws are corrupt and should be changed, but that's going to involve refactoring the entire legal system on diff…

We don't need to rewrite anything. Instead, just start breaking laws that are corrupt, like copyrite laws, and eventually they will be unenforceable. Copyright laws are already mostly unenforceable against individuals. Laws only work because society mostly follows them. The ones that people DON'T follow, may as well not even exist.

This exactly. The law is a lot like the formal description of an algorithm that processes data. The courts and lawyers are the implementation, and the way in which people behave is the data being fed into the implementation. Overload even a good implementation and it will probably crash.

Re: US Court Grants ISPs and Search Engine Blockade of Sci-Hub

#69

Post by BearGoesChirp »

landryraccoon wrote: post #26
PenguinCoder wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the key takeaway from the article. As much as I agree that researches deserve fair compensation for their work; I also believe gate-keeping academic knowledge is also wrong. It's not surprising that the US legal system found against Sci-hub. Issuing the legally binding statement, that blocking a site by ISP and search engine level, is the real problem. It sets a very tenuous precedent.

How do researchers get paid under the current system? My understanding is that the journals do not pay the scientists that produce the articles. Am I mistaken in this?

Are we counting only monetary payments? I'm assuming there is some benefit that is given to the scientist for publishing, especially in cases where the scientist pay to publish. It isn't likely at all a simple relationship between two parties, but I doubt that the scientists are being irrational by using a publisher.
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