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

torrentfreak.com

91–100 of 129 posts

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

#91
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the peer review and vetting process. 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. And if not for the fees we'd have no journals. Maybe when we are post scarcity then it'd be free. But until then people's time is not unlimited and is worth something.

> 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…

Peer review has little to no financial impact..

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

#92
Maybe they need to block sci-hub so scientists finally wake up and do something. I mean everyone i know loves sci-hub because it feels like a real upgrade for searching the literature. A lot of ppl will be mad if it is closed down.

The science community needs to come up with some kind of intermediate measures since open access publishing is not really catching up. For example, there could be laws that prevent publishers from withholding the copyrights from the authors, so the authors can always upload their papers and their commentaries for free elsewhere (i 'm sure someone will make a nice website for that - we already have arxiv &bioarxiv). Universities can continue paying their subscriptions to the journals , but blocking the right to free access to publicly-funded works is highly unethical.

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

#93
post #39
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law doesn't operate by going back to first principles ("will it really help humanity?") in every case. We've decided copyright is reasonable as a concept, and we evaluate each case by reference to the rules of copyright, without creating special exceptions all over the place. Nor are any special exceptions necessary. Absolutely nothing prevents scientists and academics from publishing in open-access journals. Sci…

I completely agree with you, in principle. Though sometimes we have to reevaluate the system and a good way to do this is civil disobedience, which I consider what SciHub is doing. >We've decided copyright is reasonable as a concept I disagree here, I think copyright is a great idea, but more and more often, executed poorly. >Absolutely nothing prevents scientists and academics from publishing in open-access journals…

In reality, quite a lot of factors prevent academics from publishing in open-access journals!

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

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Careful with this. Having a number of laws people ignore can lead to situations where all of a sudden the existing power structure starts to enforce them arbitrarily (usually against political opponents and/or an 'out' grou p).

USC 2257 compliance comes to mind. With that on the books, a nebulous definition of what it means to be compliant and no precedent for interpretation, I'd hate to be in the adult industry when any administration decides to start enforcing it.

In case anybody else doesn't recognize this, it's the law stating that porn producers must maintain proof-of-age documentation of their performers (at least that's what I think it means). Something like that anyway.

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

#95
post #93
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree with you, in principle. Though sometimes we have to reevaluate the system and a good way to do this is civil disobedience, which I consider what SciHub is doing. >We've decided copyright is reasonable as a concept I disagree here, I think copyright is a great idea, but more and more often, executed poorly. >Absolutely nothing prevents scientists and academics from publishing in open-access journals…

In reality, quite a lot of factors prevent academics from publishing in open-access journals!

That that is what needs to be fixed.

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

#96
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the peer review and vetting process. 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. And if not for the fees we'd have no journals. Maybe when we are post scarcity then it'd be free. But until then people's time is not unlimited and is worth something.

> 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…

> Which is almost universally done for free by the editorial/review panel for the given journal.

Is there good data on this? (I mean, I guess there is, but would someone present it to ignoramuses such as myself? Thanks.)

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

#97
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the peer review and vetting process. 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. And if not for the fees we'd have no journals. Maybe when we are post scarcity then it'd be free. But until then people's time is not unlimited and is worth something.

Remember that a lot of us don't work for research universities, and we can't afford $199 per paper just to read the details that are summarized in the abstract. Also, many landmark papers are several decades old. A lot of time I just want to read the details of an influential paper just to see if I agree with how it is portrayed in popular culture. For example, I recently wanted to read the Dunning Kruger paper to se…

Ditto for http://sci-hub.cc/. Another example: for those of us (just about everybody) concerned about our health, how do we access authoritative papers on pharamceutical drugs, nutrition, medical conditions etc., Or do we rely on some journalist's piece which is more often than not biased and patronizing? And the irony is that this is almost entirely tax-payer funded research.

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

#98
post #85
post #56

Government research grants need to require that papers produced are available online for free. This would rapidly change the academic publishing situation.

many funding bodies do. but what to do about older papers?

Maybe a law reducing the length of copyright on academic papers to a few years.

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

#99
post #88
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay. I've got a dedicated seed box but it is only DSL. I have ample disk space. What am I looking at, at that link? Is there a 'mirror the whole damned thing' torrent and how frequently should I update this? I already mirror a bunch of Linux ISOs, so it's not a problem to add more.

Looking at the dates on the file list, I suspect not, and that the way you keep up to date is to keep adding the new torrents as they come out. Since torrents are immutable it makes sense... would otherwise be a pain to update.

I'll add the most recent. Thanks.

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

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the peer review and vetting process. 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. And if not for the fees we'd have no journals. Maybe when we are post scarcity then it'd be free. But until then people's time is not unlimited and is worth something.

Community colleges like the one I work at can't afford the journal fees. One of my assignments involves reading several peer-reviewed articles on a narrow topic and writing an explanation of the research. Every semester I have students that struggle with finishing this assignment because the articles they need are inaccessible.

If the barrier to accessibility is such a problem, why perpetuate it by throwing your students against that wall?

The journals' business model does suck, but you're delivering students to a paywalled garden to retrieve information on what amounts to a proprietary topic. You have the power to change this by redirecting the students' attention elsewhere, either by loosening requirements or changing topics to one with more accessible research...

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