Is this legal?
your tax dollars paid for the research which was then privately hoarded
Sci Hub repository torrents of scientific papers
91–100 of 265 posts
Re: Sci Hub repository torrents of scientific papers
#92Why are people breaking copyright law, instead of questioning the researchers who voluntarily approach the journals? Why not ask the researchers if they'd consider sharing their work? Or convince them of an alternative means of publication. There is no one-handed clap.
I think people often do approach researchers. It's just nigh-on impossible to expect researchers not to try and get published in Nature, for example. The effect on credentials (and career) is too great. And of course the department they work for will be pushing for it too. Besides being the main source of academic esteem, there is a serious structural issue where Elsevier et al receive publicly-funded knowledge, yet…
The simultaneous arguments (that get repeated often) of "journals provide little to no value and therefore publications should be free" and "researchers value the curation of top journals because (seemingly) only high quality papers get accepted" are quite at odds with each other I think.
>where Elsevier et al receive publicly-funded knowledge, yet privately control the supply.
But they are given the 'knowledge'. Sure, Chicken/Egg. Maybe government grants should come with a clause for open-access..
Re: Sci Hub repository torrents of scientific papers
#93If we all got to seeding, surely we’d have the oppressors bent over a filthy toilet in no time at all.
Would you mind detailing how they have oppressed you? AFAICT they haven't forced anyone at gunpoint to do anything..
Here's a couple:
a) Gatekeeping publishers keep research from being available to less-elite schools that can't afford the subscriptions, creating a rich-get-richer dynamic in science. Leveling the playing field will lead to more-better output.
b) High subscription fees increase university fees, which translate directly into student loans.
As many have pointed out before, publicly funded research should be open access. There's no reason the university should be both paying researchers (from tax dollars + student fees) and then paying a bunch of rent-seeking rent seekers for access to the published research (using tax dollars and student fees).
Re: Sci Hub repository torrents of scientific papers
#94The total collection is 54.54 TiB, with 690 torrents as of writing. For preservation purposes, I put magnet links to all the torrents here: https://pastebin.com/zTAqS7wz So, even if the torrents go away, the magnet links should still be usable. (Edited: fixed link)
???? This is obviously equal to 54,000 datasets of 1 gigabytes each, which I would say is a pretty large dataset to publish along with a paper, so it's hard for me to even imagine 54 thousand such 1-gigabyte datasets. A one gigabyte PDF is astronomical in size, PDF's are usually far far shorter.
So why is this so large? Aren't they just PDF's, basically? And usually just a few pages? Excuse my ignorance. I'm very surprised at the size that you quote (54 TiB).
Re: Sci Hub repository torrents of scientific papers
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_all
By posting this link, are you trying to indicate a belief that I am exhibiting this fallacy? Can you explain how? GP asked, "Why are people breaking copyright law?" I thought I gave a reasonably solid explanation - some of the people in question aren't breaking copyright law while others (certainly a good number of people here on HN) don't regard copyright law as a legitimate imposition of state power in the informat…
You are applying propositional logic rigor to a comment made in a casual setting that you fail to apply to your own position. Let me show you how..
>Not everyone lives in a jurisdiction where copyright law exists.
How many? How did you gather this data?
> Among those who do, not everyone lives in a jurisdiction where this action is a violation of that law.
How did you survey the jurisdictions of people accessing this information? What legal standard did you apply to come to your conclusion of people not breaking laws?
> Of those who do, not everyone recognizes copyright law as legitimate or binding on their conduct.
Who has communicated to you that they don't recognize copyright law as legitimate or binding? Why is the number statistically relevant?
You see? Anyone can apply rigor to any comment. It took me 5 seconds just like it would take you five seconds to apply rigor to any other comment.
>I thought I gave a reasonably solid explanation
I didn't see any explanation, only a logical argument. A logical argument is not means to establishing truth. Cats have four legs and a tail, but a dog is not a cat.
Re: Sci Hub repository torrents of scientific papers
#96Wow! Any idea how much data is there all together? I'm on a work network right now and can't fiddle with it.
At least 26TB.
How much of Sci Hub is journals and other actual research papers, and how much is things like articles from general circulation magazines about science?
I know there is at least some of the later, because one time when I came across a Sci Hub link before it stopped working, it was to an article from Scientific American.
Re: Sci Hub repository torrents of scientific papers
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would you mind detailing how they have oppressed you? AFAICT they haven't forced anyone at gunpoint to do anything..
Here's a couple: a) Gatekeeping publishers keep research from being available to less-elite schools that can't afford the subscriptions, creating a rich-get-richer dynamic in science. Leveling the playing field will lead to more-better output. b) High subscription fees increase university fees, which translate directly into student loans. As many have pointed out before, publicly funded research should be open access…
Are you aware that researchers voluntarily approach publishers? And if you are, what is your rationale in blaming the publisher?
>Here's a couple: a) Gatekeeping publishers keep research from being available to less-elite schools that can't afford the subscriptions, creating a rich-get-richer dynamic in science. Leveling the playing field will lead to more-better output.
>b) High subscription fees increase university fees, which translate directly into student loans.
Sorry, but I didn't find them convincing.
>As many have pointed out before, publicly funded research should be open access.
That, we agree on 100%.
Re: Sci Hub repository torrents of scientific papers
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a very very simple fix for this. Convince the researchers to either self-publish or use a non-paywalled publication/journal.
It’s not that easy unfortunately. Many of the stronger advocates for open access are younger researchers who can’t self-publish as they need to be able to list their peer reviewed publications. Also the choice of journal is often made by more senior academics who don’t always hold the same views. It can also often have associated costs which aren’t small. I think pre-print servers like arXiv[1] are a good stepping st…
I agree with your comment.
Re: Sci Hub repository torrents of scientific papers
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
The _whole_ thing? It's 54 TB, how do you plan on receiving it?
What are you talking about? "I'll show up with hard drives and whatever I have to do. I'll rent the damn Amazon snowball truck if I have to."
Then just get the torrent ... Adequate payment will be seeding 2x.
Re: Sci Hub repository torrents of scientific papers
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
They can still make examples out of individuals. A good VPN is probably a better increaser of safety.
This can't be said too much! Torrenting anything potentially problematic without using a reputable VPN service is foolish . And make sure that the machine is firewalled, to block all traffic (including DNS requests) not using the VPN. Only the VPN client should have direct Internet connectivity. For extremely sensitive material, it's prudent to use nested VPN chains. So no one provider knows both who/where you are, a…
Do you have recommendations for actually anonymous leaseable VPS/Seedboxes? Just buying some bitcoin on Coinbase defeats the purpose. Can I mail cash somewhere?