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Thousands of scientific papers uploaded to The Pirate Bay

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Re: Thousands of scientific papers uploaded to The Pirate Bay

#31

Post by sp332 »

rjprins wrote: post #24
rimmjob wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" a .torrent file pointing to thousands of scientific papers has just been uploaded to the pirate bay" doesnt really fit into a headline

"Thousands of scientific papers were shared via The Pirate Bay"

This is still pretty misleading. TPB only hosts the .torrent file, they don't have any of the contents of the files being shared. They don't even run a tracker anymore! Any method of distributing a small file to a large number of people would have worked in the exact same way. The only thing TPB has that (e.g.) Google Docs doesn't is mindshare.

Re: Thousands of scientific papers uploaded to The Pirate Bay

#32

Post by zinkem »

araneae wrote: post #12

"Thousands of scientific papers uploaded to The Pirate Bay" Is it any surprise that the fed is attacking torrent sites? Even a tech news site puts incorrect titles on its news articles. He didn't upload papers to the Pirate Bay, he uploaded a 165kb torrent file to the Pirate Bay. It may sound like semantics but it has real legal repercussions.

The attacks on torrent sites have little to do with headlines and more to do with the reality that they are critical points in the distribution of information people don't want shared.

To many people the distinction you point out is meaningless.

Re: Thousands of scientific papers uploaded to The Pirate Bay

#33

Post by w1ntermute »

bborud wrote: post #28
MetaMan wrote: post #17

Taking things on face value I congratulate him. There's been a few times when I've tried to access an interesting academic paper only to find that it's only available behind some pay- wall. Why should we have to pay for a scientific paper if it was produced by a public funded institution? What's the long term effect on the spread and advancement of knowledge if access is restricted and "gamed" for profit? If he's sue…

once you start taking a closer look at academic publishing practices quite a lot of it ranges from "silly" to "morally questionable". and not just in publishing. there's particularly one practice that I find particularly distasteful, and that is the practice of putting the names of people who had nothing to do with the publicaion on papers. either to market the paper itself ("ooh, look, I have a famous professor's na…

> most I have talked to who are still in academia defend the practice. and when they run out of sensible arguments in its favor, which they inevitably do, they go with the old "well, it is how it is done. so we shouldn't rock the boat".

Well scientists are no less irrational than the rest of us, and why would anyone in a position of power ever be interested in changing the status quo?

Re: Thousands of scientific papers uploaded to The Pirate Bay

#35

Post by keeperofdakeys »

pestaa wrote: post #21
sitkack wrote: post #20

Please don't conflate the pay walls with public domain, these journal articles are clearly in the public domain. And they should not be behind a pay wall. Locking in of the worlds historical knowledge is even worse, I think, than locking in current research. The economic return to the holders of the keys to the garden have no moral or legal right to assert control over the this knowledge, when their articles of incor…

I'm no legal expert, but I'd guess it's illegal to sell what is in the public domain. Why hasn't anybody done anything?

You can sell works in the public domain. Go to your book store, I'm sure you can buy a copy of Frankenstein, which is in the public domain. The whole purpose of public domain is that no one owns the copyright, so there are no restrictions to anyone on what may be done with them. I could publish Frankenstein and sell it to people, but I can't stop other people from selling it.

If these documents really are under public domain, then JSTOR can't stop people from distributing the copies obtained from them. However, it is possible for JSTOR to claim copyright on the form of the distributed copies, but not the content (assuming the papers are in the public domain). That is, if they had a JSTOR logo on the papers, or something 'unique', JSTOR may have a basis for claiming copyright infringement. This is assuming they were actually obtained legally, and JSTOR didn't have a strange TOS.

Re: Thousands of scientific papers uploaded to The Pirate Bay

#36

Post by rjprins »

sp332 wrote: post #31
rjprins wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Thousands of scientific papers were shared via The Pirate Bay"

This is still pretty misleading. TPB only hosts the .torrent file, they don't have any of the contents of the files being shared. They don't even run a tracker anymore! Any method of distributing a small file to a large number of people would have worked in the exact same way. The only thing TPB has that (e.g.) Google Docs doesn't is mindshare.

Yes, I agree. I guess the problem lies in mentioning The Pirate Bay in the first place. The facilitator is unimportant.

It's like saying that the documents were mailed via TNT.

Re: Thousands of scientific papers uploaded to The Pirate Bay

#37

Post by lhnz »

sp332 wrote: post #31
rjprins wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Thousands of scientific papers were shared via The Pirate Bay"

This is still pretty misleading. TPB only hosts the .torrent file, they don't have any of the contents of the files being shared. They don't even run a tracker anymore! Any method of distributing a small file to a large number of people would have worked in the exact same way. The only thing TPB has that (e.g.) Google Docs doesn't is mindshare.

They don't run a tracker anymore?! Are they using other people's trackers or just the DHT feature?

Re: Thousands of scientific papers uploaded to The Pirate Bay

#38

Post by aw3c2 »

lhnz wrote: post #37
sp332 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is still pretty misleading. TPB only hosts the .torrent file, they don't have any of the contents of the files being shared. They don't even run a tracker anymore! Any method of distributing a small file to a large number of people would have worked in the exact same way. The only thing TPB has that (e.g.) Google Docs doesn't is mindshare.

They don't run a tracker anymore?! Are they using other people's trackers or just the DHT feature?

Yes.

Re: Thousands of scientific papers uploaded to The Pirate Bay

#39

Post by niekmaas »

bborud wrote: post #28
MetaMan wrote: post #17

Taking things on face value I congratulate him. There's been a few times when I've tried to access an interesting academic paper only to find that it's only available behind some pay- wall. Why should we have to pay for a scientific paper if it was produced by a public funded institution? What's the long term effect on the spread and advancement of knowledge if access is restricted and "gamed" for profit? If he's sue…

once you start taking a closer look at academic publishing practices quite a lot of it ranges from "silly" to "morally questionable". and not just in publishing. there's particularly one practice that I find particularly distasteful, and that is the practice of putting the names of people who had nothing to do with the publicaion on papers. either to market the paper itself ("ooh, look, I have a famous professor's na…

For most journals I have experience with as a (co-)author a signed form is required for every (co-)author on the paper. This way it's pretty hard to deny you have knowledge of the paper.

I agree with you that people that have not contributed should not be on a paper. For most high impact journals thesedays explanation is required of who did what. Of course this is far from 100% secure but it's an interesting step. Lying about the contribution of a certain co-author is something else than just adding a name to the list. Lying is fraud whereas adding a name might not actually be fraud I think.

Re: Thousands of scientific papers uploaded to The Pirate Bay

#40

Post by pestaa »

pestaa wrote: post #21
sitkack wrote: post #20

Please don't conflate the pay walls with public domain, these journal articles are clearly in the public domain. And they should not be behind a pay wall. Locking in of the worlds historical knowledge is even worse, I think, than locking in current research. The economic return to the holders of the keys to the garden have no moral or legal right to assert control over the this knowledge, when their articles of incor…

I'm no legal expert, but I'd guess it's illegal to sell what is in the public domain. Why hasn't anybody done anything?

Kudos for compensation to the downvotes I received. I don't know what happened to the "ask and learn" culture.

I am not a native English speaker, and the term public domain was not self-explanatory (rather, it explained itself in the wrong way).

In Hungarian, public domain means közkincs, which is roughly equivalent to "treasure of the public". So the question seemed reasonable to ask.

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