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Academics sharing paywalled papers with a codeword on Twitter

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Academics sharing paywalled papers with a codeword on Twitter

#131

Post by refurb »

RobertKerans wrote: post #104
refurb wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now it looks like Elsevier is not going to cooperate Are we really surprised? How would you feel if some of your customers demanded you turn your business over to them for zero compensation? I wish the linguists all the luck in the world starting their new, open-access journal.

Sure, you'd be peeved, but if the businesses in question is parasitic it's extremely difficult to raise even a modicum of sympathy

Why is it parasitic again? These journals are providing a service. You may not agree with the cost of that service and are free (both authors and reader) to get that service somewhere else.

Re: Academics sharing paywalled papers with a codeword on Twitter

#132

Post by DarkLinkXXXX »

wolfgke wrote: post #25

Relevant: Aaron Swartz - Guerilla Open Access Manifesto > https://ia700808.us.archive.org/17/items/GuerillaOpenAccessM... > https://archive.org/details/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto

That first link will probably 404 within the year. The next time, you should right click and copy the link, which hasn't been redirected.

https://archive.org/download/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goa...

Re: Academics sharing paywalled papers with a codeword on Twitter

#134

Post by kragen »

Asbostos wrote: post #23
OlafLostViking wrote: post #2

I'm in the lucky position to have access to most publications legally. But I cannot imagine what to do if our library wouldn't have subscriptions. The prices most publishers are demanding are insanely high and simply not financable if you need just a dozen papers or so. Especially considering that the research and the the writing is done by scientists, the review is done by other scientists. For free. The writers eve…

Prices for anything don't have to be justified. The market decides them. It turns out that people really want to pay those publishers, so they can charge high fees. It also turns out scientists really want to publish their work in those closed-access journals. Whatever attracts them to do that is what justifies the high prices. What attracts them? Universities use them as a proxy to judge job applicants. Blame univer…

I wasn't complaining about page fees, which are indeed subject to the laws of the market. I was complaining about fees charged for getting copies of the papers, which are governed by government-granted monopolies on producing copies of each paper, known as "copyrights". Those fees are not subject to the laws of supply and demand; the publisher can set them as high or low as it wishes, because you cannot simply go to a different publisher to get the paper if you think the price is too high. Consequently, the First Fundamental Theorem of Welfare Economics does not apply, or even come close.

The yearly expenses for arXiv https://confluence.cornell.edu/download/attachments/12711648... are about US$780k. This supports http://arxiv.org/stats/get_monthly_downloads about 11 million copies of papers produced per month, or 132 million per year, for a cost of US$0.006 per paper. These are the same kinds of papers Elsevier tries to charge you US$30 for.

When two different providers of an identical service are charging you amounts that vary by a factor of 5000, you can see that the market is failing to promote public welfare, and so markets are not a good way to organize that part of society.

Re: Academics sharing paywalled papers with a codeword on Twitter

#135

Post by kragen »

refurb wrote: post #129
wolfgke wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a two-sided market, where the publishers are the middlemen between scientists publishing their results and readers of the papers. You argue that the side scientists - publisher is a free market. I consider this as dubious because of, say, impact factors, but for the sake of argumentation, I'll accept it for now. But the really interesting side of the market is not scientist - publisher, but publisher - reader…

By that same argument, the computer market is a one-sided monopoly as well. Apple and Apple alone produces and sells Apple computers.

You may want to look up "two-sided market".

Re: Academics sharing paywalled papers with a codeword on Twitter

#136

Post by DarkLinkXXXX »

vortico wrote: post #30
Asbostos wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scientists still love giving up their rights to Elsevier though. They're as much to blame as the publisher. Maybe something would start to happen if scientists preferentially avoided citing non-openly published papers. They won't though, because their work is too competitive, but it might help to put a damper on it.

Random guess, but it seems that 50% of journals in the fields I've been in are owned by Elsevier, even if it doesn't appear to be at first. And yes, a publication in an Elsevier or Springer journal rather than a new open-access one can make a difference of prestige that could change which university I work for in the next 4 years, for example.

> And yes, a publication in an Elsevier or Springer journal rather than a new open-access one can make a difference of prestige that could change which university I work for in the next 4 years, for example.

But won't every university you apply to tell you that that isn't the case?

Re: Academics sharing paywalled papers with a codeword on Twitter

#137

Post by dumbmatter »

JupiterMoon wrote: post #69
xefer wrote: post #53

I've had over 100% luck emailing papers' authors directly asking for a copy of a particular paper I've been interested in reading. I typically get a PDF emailed back to me. I say "over 100%" because several times I've had hard copies sent for whatever reason with hand-written letters thanking me for expressing interest in their research and letting me know they'd be happy to answer any questions, etc. I've generally…

When you publish get generally get sent a stack of hard copies for distribution to whoever you feel like sending to (usually far more than you have people to send to). Sending the reprints is legal. Sending the pdf is either illegal or legal or more likely a huge grey area which as an author you can't be bothered to work out. Postage is free in most academic departments and not much harder than sending an email. Ther…

Really? I've published a bunch of papers and only ever got one hard copy - and that was one copy of the journal, no additional copies to share.

Re: Academics sharing paywalled papers with a codeword on Twitter

#138

Post by masklinn »

ultramancool wrote: post #94
ar-jan wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last week linguists issued Elsevier an ultimatum, demanding fair open access for the journal Lingua [0,1]: > We asked for the following: 1) The journal is transferred to full Open Access status, 2) Article Processing Charges (APCs) cost 400 euros, 3) The copyright of articles remains with the authors, 4) The journal henceforth operates under a cc-by licence, 5) Ownership of the journal is transferred to the collectiv…

Wow, that's very impressive. I hope other journals will follow suit.

It's not the first time it happened, the entire editorial board of Topology[0] resigned and went on to create the Journal of Topology back in 2006~2007, and over way less than the Lingua demands: Topology's editor just wanted better (lower) pricing policies. Same story for the Journal of Logic Programming (in 2000), the Journal of Algorithms (in 2003) or the International Journal of Solids and Structures (in 2005).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topology_(journal)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Topology

Re: Academics sharing paywalled papers with a codeword on Twitter

#139

Post by dumbmatter »

knlje wrote: post #49
teekert wrote: post #46

I also don't like it but the paper needs be printed and reviewed. This is not free. Perhaps we should agree that the publishing group pays for the entire cost of the article so that it can be free after the process of publishing it? Or boycot paywalled publishers, maybe go for PLOS? If you have ever complained about paywalls, don't ever publish in a paywalled journal yourself. I'm all for free papers by the way, noth…

> I also don't like it but the paper needs be printed and reviewed. This is not free. I have peer reviewed various academic papers for Elsevier without receiving any monetary compensation. Moreover, quite small amount of academic papers is read in a printed form, at least among my colleagues. Where the money goes to?

Where the money goes to?

Ask PLoS, they charge $3k/article for open access publications. How much cheaper do you think Elsevier can be than PLoS?

Re: Academics sharing paywalled papers with a codeword on Twitter

#140

Post by cs702 »

kragen wrote: post #11

The only "online piracy" I see here is when Elsevier demands US$30 from you to get a copy of a paper written by scientists paid for by your tax dollars, who paid Elsevier page fees to publish it . Elsevier and similar companies are the thieves here, and they have a hell of a lot of nerve to be accusing scientists of "stealing" and "piracy" for working to create the very knowledge Elsevier shamelessly exploits. (Even…

The title of this story alone is problematic, not just its contents, because its a sign of how wrong the conventional wisdom is on this. It accuses scientists of breaking the law with secret code-words.

A more accurate title would have been: "Scientists forced to break the law to access the research they need in order to advance scientific knowledge."

A more provocative but still accurate title would have been: "Scientific progress impeded by corporations extracting economic rents from scientists and taxpayers, to the detriment of humankind."

Because that is what is happening.

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