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The Unstoppable Rise of Sci-Hub (2019)

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Re: The Unstoppable Rise of Sci-Hub (2019)

#51

Post by terminaljunkid »

Topolomancer wrote: post #5

I am part of a well-funded university, so I have access to all the papers without using Sci-Hub. Nevertheless, I prefer this platform because I disagree with the publishing model of most publishers. Let's not get into the details here, but there is all kinds of shoddy editorship happening all over the place---I have seen at least one blatant case of plagiarism in an Elsevier journal: no one cares. I have experienced…

Better, I am almost always able to download the paper by prepending sci-hub [dot] tw [slash] to publisher's URL. It sometime asks captchas but not at all a problem.

Re: The Unstoppable Rise of Sci-Hub (2019)

#52

Post by timkam »

Perhaps my perspective is ignorant, but in my sub-field of computer science, most people put their papers/pre-prints openly accessible on arXiv, ResearchGate, or personal web pages (if the publisher is not open access). I've never used Sci-Hub because I never had to, and when at home or traveling, I rarely have to use my university's VPN, because I cannot read a paper "for free". This is probably a good cultural indicator of my domain.

Re: The Unstoppable Rise of Sci-Hub (2019)

#53

Post by martin_vejmelka »

azangru wrote: post #35
Calloutman wrote: post #13

I have a PhD in physics. I have zero problem with anyone downloading any of my papers from scihub. My publishers paid me nothing, and also paid the academics who peer reviewed my paper nothing. If I had stayed in academia (I didn't partially because of the toxic nature of publishing) I would also have been expected to peer review other journals for free. Information should be free access information general, but publ…

> I have a PhD in physics. I have zero problem with anyone downloading any of my papers from scihub. Out of curiosity: why don't you just host your papers on your website then - or, if you do, why don't you think it's enough?

> why don't you just host your papers on your website then - or, if you do, why don't you think it's enough?

Most publishers prevented you from doing this as of a few years ago (I left academic research around that time). You were not allowed to post any content that contains any work by the publisher (even formatting/editing changes after first round of reviews). Thus you could only publish a "preprint" which no-one can rely on to cite because they don't know what's in the final peer-reviewed version. Some publishers are more lenient than others but there's definitely friction induced.

Re: The Unstoppable Rise of Sci-Hub (2019)

#54

Post by goatkarma »

matsemann wrote: post #43
goatkarma wrote: post #41

One thing that is often overlooked is method that Scihub uses to obtain articles, and the impact that method has on the very researchers who use it. Phishing scams are used to obtain the credentials of university accounts which are then used via a proxy on Scihub to obtain the requested article (it's quite clever..they seem to often silently proxy institution's Ezproxy with the phished credentials) . The same credent…

Is this FUD or do you have anything to back this up with?

20 years of working in HE IT.

Random unaffiliated Scihub users in China contacting our University IT helpdesk after the phished accounts Scihub was using to proxy an article had reached it's EZproxy download limit and the 'you have been blocked' message they receive instructed them to contact our helpdesk!

Re: The Unstoppable Rise of Sci-Hub (2019)

#55

Post by Tenoke »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #48

I personally adore Sci-Hub and Libgen but that's because such is my personal alignment - I believe no such concept as "intellectual property" should exist and right (which, from my point of view, is unlimited sharing of what is usually copyrighted in this case) is more important than legal. To support my stance I can cite the German phenomenon (many attribute it's 19th century industrial growth to unconstrained knowl…

>I have met quite a number of professors who would surely expel me from net university if I had scanned an expensive textbook and shared it with other students, yet they magically support SciHub

With textbooks a reasonable amount of the money goes to the authors. Those professors write the textbooks and will lose out if you pirate them.

It is not so with papers though. The professors who write them lose little if anything when you pirate their research - those who lose money (elsevier and co) in that case are (rightly) perceived as not deserving anyway.

Re: The Unstoppable Rise of Sci-Hub (2019)

#56

Post by cjslep »

goatkarma wrote: post #41

One thing that is often overlooked is method that Scihub uses to obtain articles, and the impact that method has on the very researchers who use it. Phishing scams are used to obtain the credentials of university accounts which are then used via a proxy on Scihub to obtain the requested article (it's quite clever..they seem to often silently proxy institution's Ezproxy with the phished credentials) . The same credent…

Having said that, library software providers and journal platforms should be looking at Scihub and learning from it. Users want an easy to use platform with minimal fuss or hoops to jump through.

If you bothered to read TFA, you'd have realized this statement was already addressed by TFA's point on publishers mistaking Sci-Hub's appeal as "simple to use" like single sign-on. Which makes me question your credibility.

Re: The Unstoppable Rise of Sci-Hub (2019)

#57

Post by James-primitive »

Topolomancer wrote: post #5

I am part of a well-funded university, so I have access to all the papers without using Sci-Hub. Nevertheless, I prefer this platform because I disagree with the publishing model of most publishers. Let's not get into the details here, but there is all kinds of shoddy editorship happening all over the place---I have seen at least one blatant case of plagiarism in an Elsevier journal: no one cares. I have experienced…

Yes, minimal interfaces are really really hood thing

Re: The Unstoppable Rise of Sci-Hub (2019)

#58

Post by improbable22 »

martin_vejmelka wrote: post #53
azangru wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have a PhD in physics. I have zero problem with anyone downloading any of my papers from scihub. Out of curiosity: why don't you just host your papers on your website then - or, if you do, why don't you think it's enough?

> why don't you just host your papers on your website then - or, if you do, why don't you think it's enough? Most publishers prevented you from doing this as of a few years ago (I left academic research around that time). You were not allowed to post any content that contains any work by the publisher (even formatting/editing changes after first round of reviews). Thus you could only publish a "preprint" which no-one…

The norm at least in parts of physics is to update the arxiv version once the paper is accepted, with a note saying "v3: matches version to appear in XXX", with a DOI link. Where "matches" means the content, but not the journal's formatting, spelling & comma preferences, etc.

(And ideally this note would also mention any substantial changes, like "new section 4 explaining..." or "derivation in 3.2 re-written, but no change to conclusions", for the benefit of those who already read v2.)

Re: The Unstoppable Rise of Sci-Hub (2019)

#59

Post by matsemann »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #48

I personally adore Sci-Hub and Libgen but that's because such is my personal alignment - I believe no such concept as "intellectual property" should exist and right (which, from my point of view, is unlimited sharing of what is usually copyrighted in this case) is more important than legal. To support my stance I can cite the German phenomenon (many attribute it's 19th century industrial growth to unconstrained knowl…

> I have met quite a number of professors who would surely expel me from the university if I had scanned an expensive textbook and shared it with other students, yet they magically support SciHub.

That's because textbooks is a scam the professors are in on and profit off.

Re: The Unstoppable Rise of Sci-Hub (2019)

#60

Post by goatkarma »

Tepix wrote: post #47
goatkarma wrote: post #41

One thing that is often overlooked is method that Scihub uses to obtain articles, and the impact that method has on the very researchers who use it. Phishing scams are used to obtain the credentials of university accounts which are then used via a proxy on Scihub to obtain the requested article (it's quite clever..they seem to often silently proxy institution's Ezproxy with the phished credentials) . The same credent…

Proof required. You may work for Elsevier and just be spreading FUD.

I think pretty much any university could provide proof that Scihub uses phished credentials to proxy articles for their users. It's no secret in HE.

Here's the first Google link. It's far too alarmist but should at least give the gist. https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2018/09/18/guest-post-th...

One other point I missed that we have to often deal with : when phished accounts are used to mass-download PDFs, many publisher sites auto-block the IP of the requester, which in this case is the University's Ezproxy server. This then means no user at the university can access the resource till the block is lifted (or they could just use Scihub in the meantime :~D ).

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