I think prevention of semantic extraction to diagrams would better pitched as "another unforeseen negative consequence of agreeing to Elsevier's terms", rather than as a significant part of the problem. If this story became a major part of the larger narrative, Elsevier could respond to this particular concern in a limited way (special access for researchers that apply for it), rather than dealing with the more central concerns.
UK chemist on Elsevier's ban on textmining
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Re: UK chemist on Elsevier's ban on textmining
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#JSTOR
Not really a bad ending. The feds have no case against him, MIT and JSTOR aren't going to sue him, and JSTOR decided that releasing their archive was a good idea. Hopefully the FBI will drop their case.
35 years in prison would be a pretty bad ending, and he's still being prosecuted for that.
Re: UK chemist on Elsevier's ban on textmining
#13I think prevention of semantic extraction to diagrams would better pitched as "another unforeseen negative consequence of agreeing to Elsevier's terms", rather than as a significant part of the problem. If this story became a major part of the larger narrative, Elsevier could respond to this particular concern in a limited way (special access for researchers that apply for it), rather than dealing with the more centr…
people don't realize how quickly text mining is coming along these days.
the chemistry papers talked about in this article are an easy domain, but similar shredding of more general documents will be possible by 2018.
developing all this takes people's time and other resources, for which money is a proxy. the best way to beat Elsevier is to build something better -- but that something better is going to take substantial funding.
Scientific papers can be published online at a cost well under $35. Add bureaucracy to that, however, and the cost can increase to 100 times. Conventional funding agencies have a limited interest in long-term programs (as opposed to projects) so that organizations find it difficult to afford to maintain digital libraries after they are built. To bring the evil empire down, somebody needs to figure out how to get that $35.
Re: UK chemist on Elsevier's ban on textmining
#14Google "Swanson linking". This. ban. is probably impeding discovery along that vector as well.
Re: UK chemist on Elsevier's ban on textmining
#15An outrage. I know an eminent chemist who will not referee for Elsevier--he was ahead of his time. The monopoly that the scientific publishers have consists of controlled access to 60 years of copyrighted work. An embargo of a few years after publication would be considerably better than what we have, but the intellectual monopolists want those billions. The cost of publishing hasn't gone up--the money is going into their executive suites. And most likely to their executive's sweetie pies.
Re: UK chemist on Elsevier's ban on textmining
#16Just throwing it into the mix, what would it take to convince Google to stop indexing the content of journal articles from closed-access journals? Surely without search, the articles are siloed; both journals and authors get a taste of the importance of opening access.
Re: UK chemist on Elsevier's ban on textmining
#17End copyright.
Re: UK chemist on Elsevier's ban on textmining
#18So I can't use Ctrl-F?
Re: UK chemist on Elsevier's ban on textmining
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really a bad ending. The feds have no case against him, MIT and JSTOR aren't going to sue him, and JSTOR decided that releasing their archive was a good idea. Hopefully the FBI will drop their case.
35 years in prison would be a pretty bad ending, and he's still being prosecuted for that.
35 years in prison is what you would get in federal court for walking across the street as the light was changing from yellow to red. It is there to give the government a better position to offer a plea agreement. It is highly unlikely that he would be convicted of every count, and even if he was, it is highly unlikely that he would receive the maximum sentence for each count.
But, 35 years is scary, and if I were in his shoes and the government said "pay a $100,000 fine", I'd probably agree without much argument. And that's exactly the point of saying he faces "up to" 35 years.
Re: UK chemist on Elsevier's ban on textmining
#20Here is the follow-up he mentioned: Textmining: My years negotiating with Elsevier, http://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk/pmr/2011/11/27/textmining-my-years...