Live data from Hacker News

Nature makes all articles free to view

nature.com

31–40 of 134 posts

Re: Nature makes all articles free to view

#32
post #22
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be prepared to name research projects that do not receive government funding in the first or second degree. (That is: receive funding directly, or from grant-making organizations that themselves receive substantial government funding.)

Any research funded by non-governmental organizations like the Howard Hughes Foundation, Michael J Fox foundation, etc, etc.

According to the way stem cell research was segregated, those projects would have had to take place in buildings funded without taxes, staffed by researchers paid by private funds, using new equipment and materials, etc...

Re: Nature makes all articles free to view

#33

I paid for the research with my tax payer money. Give me full access to the articles. Anything less is unacceptable (unless Nature wants to pay me back the taxes they owe me).

> I paid for the research with my tax payer money. Give me full access to it.

though I have a similar desire I don't think that's a good argument for justifying it. why? evaluate the following symmetrical situations:

> I paid for the [tank, aircraft carrier, nukes, Fort Knox, etc] with my tax payer money. Therefore...

that said, I do think there's a greater net benefit to humanity, and scientific progress will accelerate, the easier, cheaper and less restrictive access we have to papers and research results.

Re: Nature makes all articles free to view

#34
post #22
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be prepared to name research projects that do not receive government funding in the first or second degree. (That is: receive funding directly, or from grant-making organizations that themselves receive substantial government funding.)

Any research funded by non-governmental organizations like the Howard Hughes Foundation, Michael J Fox foundation, etc, etc.

A great deal of research funded by such organizations is done in combination with taxpayer funding, particularly with regard to infrastructure. As a cancer researcher I had funding from companies and foundations, but depended on my position in a tax-payer funded research lab to actually do the work.

Re: Nature makes all articles free to view

#35

I paid for the research with my tax payer money. Give me full access to the articles. Anything less is unacceptable (unless Nature wants to pay me back the taxes they owe me).

> I paid for the research with my tax payer money. Give me full access to it. though I have a similar desire I don't think that's a good argument for justifying it. why? evaluate the following symmetrical situations: > I paid for the [tank, aircraft carrier, nukes, Fort Knox, etc] with my tax payer money. Therefore... that said, I do think there's a greater net benefit to humanity, and scientific progress will accele…

> I paid for the [tank, aircraft carrier, nukes, Fort Knox, etc] with my tax payer money. Therefore...

That's not a very good comparison, as those are all rival goods, and furthermore have obvious negative externalities (IE are dangerous). I can't think of a non-rival government-funded good (without harmful externalities) that would NOT make sense to to make freely available.

Edit: Oh hey, I'm being downvoted for an opinion. Sitting at -1 right now.

Re: Nature makes all articles free to view

#36

I like the idea of shared annotations. Or more specifically I like the idea of Science as a conversation. It has always frustrated me that papers are formatted for print and don't include hyperlinks, and it's difficult to add comments or corrections to a paper. Like others though I am not sure I believe that publishers should continue to exist in anything like their current form.

I would really enjoy an annotation system like genius.com

How that might work in a scholarly setting I'm not sure. The melting pot of commentary and feedback that can surround a paper is something that individual reviews will always struggle to capture, but is easily achieved with an annotated copy.

Whilst background and detailed investigation may be left out of sections of a paper, or are assumed knowledge for the target audience, annotations allow casual readers to engage with the content and the author beyond what is appropriate in the published form.

It would be interesting to see genius.com introduce a science section, or perhaps just more science sections (they have law, history, literature etc already), but the format doesn't immediately gel with how papers are currently published. A pdf annotation system might be the best bet for now.

Re: Nature makes all articles free to view

#37
post #30
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The public link is probably coded to each subscriber, so they would be able to identify the culprit and disable all the links from that subscriber.

As soon as a link is shared, each person who learns the URL is potentially a "culprit."

Not if the URL encodes the originator of the link, and all links tied to that user stop working when Nature flips a switch.

But regardless of what DRM scheme they choose, it's doomed to fail, all it takes is one person to crack the scheme and liberate the underlying documents. Alternatively, since 100 anointed blogs and media outlets will apparently have the right to download raw PDFs, all it takes is for one of their accounts to get hacked.

Re: Nature makes all articles free to view

#39
post #29
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The public link is probably coded to each subscriber, so they would be able to identify the culprit and disable all the links from that subscriber.

Hah, come on. :) That's not a very high barrier. A 'pirate' simply has to get a throwaway account (or steal one, if he's truly bad) and he doesn't even have to worry about that. I expect all Nature articles made "free" today to be available on TPB in one month. I'll put .1 BTC on it. :)

What odds?

Re: Nature makes all articles free to view

#40
post #15

Key quote: "All research papers from Nature will be made free to read in a proprietary screen-view format that can be annotated but not copied, printed or downloaded." It sounds like: * you may have to install the ReadCube reader to view the protected PDFs, unclear if you can view them in a regular PDF viewer. ("ReadCube (...) will be used to host and display read-only versions of the articles' PDFs") * only subscrib…

I just checked this out, you do not have to install anything. From their website: "ReadCube Connect is an HTML5-powered interactive PDF viewer." I presume this update will please many people, because they can now see whether or not an article they're contemplating purchasing actually touches on desired areas or not. Good thinking on their part!

I just signed up for ReadCube, thinking this meant I could at least browse articles as a member of the general public. You have to install an app on your computer and log in to view articles and use it. ReadCube Connect seems to be a Scribd-esque way to embed articles on existing pages (like a news story), not a standalone app.

You also need a link shared to you via a paid subscriber (or one of a bunch of news sites etc.) to view articles. It's "free" in a very misleading way.

Post reply on HN