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How Indian lawyers, scientists gave Sci-Hub its first legal defense team

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Re: How Indian lawyers, scientists gave Sci-Hub its first legal defense team

#41

Post by autoliteInline »

judge2020 wrote: post #28
rramadass wrote: post #24

>“The way the publishing industry is functioning is unethical. Though what Alexandra Elbakyan is doing is illegal she is countering an industry that is working unethically,” 100% agree with this; Though i would dispute that what she is doing is "illegal". When the deck is completely stacked against you, going outside the rules is not "illegal". Every rational, educated person on this planet should support free access…

> When the deck is completely stacked against you, going outside the rules is not "illegal". Yes it is. Things are "illegal" when they're in the law book, regardless of which law they're breaking and what they're standing up for.

>Things are "illegal" when they're in the law book,

Probably oughtta get the Kazakhstani Disney police right on it.

Re: How Indian lawyers, scientists gave Sci-Hub its first legal defense team

#42

Post by maccard »

commoner wrote: post #33
godelmachine wrote: post #30

I wish there was a way I could financially support Sci-Hub. The only impediment is they accept cryptocurrency and I am too lazy to get well versed with it. Not forgetting to mention the prices are currently through the roof, and TBH unaffordable for me. But just like I regularly support Wikipedia and USENIX with modest but periodic donations, I would like to support Sci-Hub as well.

> Not forgetting to mention the prices are currently through the roof, and TBH unaffordable for me. Cryptocurrencies are divisible into tiny fractional units, so you don't have to buy a whole unit of a cryptocurrency to use it. While it is a small hassle to convert your currency to cryptocurrency before sending it, if you use an exchange like Coinbase, it's not much harder than transferring money to a different bank/…

> it's not much harder than transferring money to a different bank/investment account.

Yes, along with all the KYC requirements that coinbase require, just like my investment account does. Meanwhile the bar for services like Pateron, paypal, shopify, etc is one click and done.

Re: How Indian lawyers, scientists gave Sci-Hub its first legal defense team

#43

Post by ausbin »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #31

why? what is the "benefit of elsevier"? beyond holding copyright to the work of others which they give away for free, what value addition does elsevier bring to the table that cant be done otherwise? if the argument is that they provide classification and other stuff, why cant you just dump everything on schihub and let people do the organization themselves? remember a few hundred years ago, horse drawn carts were a…

> on a sidenote, why arent authors and researchers publishing on scihub directly?

Many compsci/physics/math researchers already submit preprints (or post-prints even) of their papers to arXiv, which is public: https://arxiv.org/. I'm confused, is there a reason why they should they submit to Sci-Hub too?

Re: How Indian lawyers, scientists gave Sci-Hub its first legal defense team

#44

Post by BoxOfRain »

Izikiel43 wrote: post #40
justinator wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you, I've been corrected.

Also, center in british english is centre.

Captchas are the worst for this as a native British English speaker since they tend to be automotive, which is an area where British and American English differ wildly. Some are fairly self-explanatory because of how literal the American English terms are (pavement vs sidewalk, zebra crossing vs crosswalk) but some are a bit more arcane (central reservation vs median, bonnet/boot vs hood/trunk).

Re: How Indian lawyers, scientists gave Sci-Hub its first legal defense team

#45

Post by pessimizer »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #11
danuker wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a fair price? There is no such thing. An economically optimal price is one that maximizes total profit. If it's too high, fewer people will buy the product, which might reduce profit. If it's too low, the profit margin will be small in spite of lots of units sold.

> What is a fair price? There is no such thing It's subjective, but that doesn't make it nonexistent. I pay $10/mo. for Spotify. I'm happy with that. I think I get great value for that money spent. If someone came out with an $8/month streaming service, I'd scrutinize it fairly closely before contemplating switching.

Are you actually saying that you would refuse to use a service (all other things being equal) that was $8/month because $10/month is what you think is "fair?"

If so, I'd mark that behavior as strange, and not actually evidence of the existence of a "fair price." There's no way this behavior is typical.

If what you're saying is that you'd assume a price lower than $10/month would have other, unseen problems, then:

1) You're not referring to a "fair price" but instead a believable price, which is a compromise between what you want to pay (which is nothing) and what you estimate to be the price of delivery, and the odds with that price in mind that what you receive will be adulterated/lower-quality than advertised.

2) How is $10/month fair? No wonder musicians don't make any money.

Re: How Indian lawyers, scientists gave Sci-Hub its first legal defense team

#46

Post by salawat »

frenchy wrote: post #29
judge2020 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When the deck is completely stacked against you, going outside the rules is not "illegal". Yes it is. Things are "illegal" when they're in the law book, regardless of which law they're breaking and what they're standing up for.

In most places, and certainly in places that practice "common law" and democracy, part of what makes something legal is its moral acceptability. The laws on the books exist to reflect that and to make things function efficiently and fairly. Without that, laws are simply a tool of violence and oppression by the authorities (or the majority, in case of a democracy) against their population. That's why we have juries of…

Hence why jury nullification scares the ever loving crap out of the Justice system. Binding precedent is created by the Jury, which throws a wrench into the works that for some reason is seen less acceptable or "official" than a prosecutor exercising prosecutorial discretion.

Re: How Indian lawyers, scientists gave Sci-Hub its first legal defense team

#47

Post by gpm »

salawat wrote: post #46
frenchy wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most places, and certainly in places that practice "common law" and democracy, part of what makes something legal is its moral acceptability. The laws on the books exist to reflect that and to make things function efficiently and fairly. Without that, laws are simply a tool of violence and oppression by the authorities (or the majority, in case of a democracy) against their population. That's why we have juries of…

Hence why jury nullification scares the ever loving crap out of the Justice system. Binding precedent is created by the Jury, which throws a wrench into the works that for some reason is seen less acceptable or "official" than a prosecutor exercising prosecutorial discretion.

Jury nullification does not create binding precedent.

Re: How Indian lawyers, scientists gave Sci-Hub its first legal defense team

#48

Post by SuoDuanDao »

_bqot wrote: post #36
rramadass wrote: post #24

>“The way the publishing industry is functioning is unethical. Though what Alexandra Elbakyan is doing is illegal she is countering an industry that is working unethically,” 100% agree with this; Though i would dispute that what she is doing is "illegal". When the deck is completely stacked against you, going outside the rules is not "illegal". Every rational, educated person on this planet should support free access…

Isn't this double negation? If what the industry is doing is unethical and what Alexandra is doing is considered "illegal" in the eyes of that industry... wouldn't that make it actually legal and ethical?

I think it's quite important to distinguish between 'legal' and 'ethical'. What Alexandra is doing is illegal and ethical. If we don't view those two as separate it becomes way too easy to excuse unethical behaviour on the basis of 'just obeying the law'

Re: How Indian lawyers, scientists gave Sci-Hub its first legal defense team

#49

Post by Y_Y »

ausbin wrote: post #43
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #31

why? what is the "benefit of elsevier"? beyond holding copyright to the work of others which they give away for free, what value addition does elsevier bring to the table that cant be done otherwise? if the argument is that they provide classification and other stuff, why cant you just dump everything on schihub and let people do the organization themselves? remember a few hundred years ago, horse drawn carts were a…

> on a sidenote, why arent authors and researchers publishing on scihub directly? Many compsci/physics/math researchers already submit preprints (or post-prints even) of their papers to arXiv, which is public: https://arxiv.org/ . I'm confused, is there a reason why they should they submit to Sci-Hub too?

They're not always quite the same, often arxiv have doesn't updates reflecting changes during the publication process (not including formatting). Can be annoying, the can be subtle differences and people aren't really careful about which versions they use or cite.

Re: How Indian lawyers, scientists gave Sci-Hub its first legal defense team

#50

Post by pkaye »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #31

why? what is the "benefit of elsevier"? beyond holding copyright to the work of others which they give away for free, what value addition does elsevier bring to the table that cant be done otherwise? if the argument is that they provide classification and other stuff, why cant you just dump everything on schihub and let people do the organization themselves? remember a few hundred years ago, horse drawn carts were a…

> on a sidenote, why arent authors and researchers publishing on scihub directly?

Because Elsevier own prestigious journals that authors want to publish on. Its like saying why compete in the Olympics when you can compete in your local races.

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