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US Court Grants ISPs and Search Engine Blockade of Sci-Hub

torrentfreak.com

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Re: US Court Grants ISPs and Search Engine Blockade of Sci-Hub

#21

Post by gooseus »

I support Scihub and all efforts to make the body of human knowledge and scientific research freely available to all humans... especially if any of the research has been funded by taxpayer dollars.

I believe that at most, these journals should enjoy a limited copyright that expires after a short time (1-10 years?) after which the papers should be freely available.

That being said, this is disappointing to me:

> Sci-Hub was made aware of the legal proceedings but did not appear in court. As a result, a default was entered against the site.

This response creates no opportunity to argue a compelling case for why scientific knowledge should not remain pay-walled by publishers and/or establish new legal frameworks for copyright of scientific knowledge.

Here is a bonus article from Priceonomics I'm a big fan of (that I'm sure has been shared here before) about why paywalled science is Bullshit:

https://priceonomics.com/post/50096804256/why-is-science-beh...

Re: US Court Grants ISPs and Search Engine Blockade of Sci-Hub

#23

Post by dmix »

Knufen wrote: post #18
cobookman wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the peer review and vetting process. As for the price I don't think it's really that expensive. I've never heard of a research University unable to afford it. And if not for the fees we'd have no journals. Maybe when we are post scarcity then it'd be free. But until then people's time is not unlimited and is worth something.

>As for the price I don't think it's really that expensive. There are multiple universities spending millions upon millions (which could be used to further science), to buy subscriptions for all the journals. I know my university spends 10 mil euroes a year. And it's not only about pricing, it's the general trend of commercialising research which should benefint all of humanity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier…

Who does this money go to? Does a percentage go back to the scientists who write the papers?

Re: US Court Grants ISPs and Search Engine Blockade of Sci-Hub

#24

Post by lou1306 »

dmix wrote: post #23
Knufen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As for the price I don't think it's really that expensive. There are multiple universities spending millions upon millions (which could be used to further science), to buy subscriptions for all the journals. I know my university spends 10 mil euroes a year. And it's not only about pricing, it's the general trend of commercialising research which should benefint all of humanity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier…

Who does this money go to? Does a percentage go back to the scientists who write the papers?

It depends... Do you consider 0% "a percentage"?

Re: US Court Grants ISPs and Search Engine Blockade of Sci-Hub

#25

Post by Knufen »

dmix wrote: post #23
Knufen wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As for the price I don't think it's really that expensive. There are multiple universities spending millions upon millions (which could be used to further science), to buy subscriptions for all the journals. I know my university spends 10 mil euroes a year. And it's not only about pricing, it's the general trend of commercialising research which should benefint all of humanity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier…

Who does this money go to? Does a percentage go back to the scientists who write the papers?

The publisher, essentially the researcher gives the rights to his paper in exchange for publishing. Then the publisher put the research behind a paywall and even the researcher who wrote it will have to pay.

Re: US Court Grants ISPs and Search Engine Blockade of Sci-Hub

#26

Post by landryraccoon »

PenguinCoder wrote: post #7
wccrawford wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The blocking of the site by ISPs and search engines is the bad part, IMO. Other than that, it seems pretty standard. And it's kind of dumb, because they could just get a new domain name, like many of the other torrent sites do. It's effectively worthless.

This is the key takeaway from the article. As much as I agree that researches deserve fair compensation for their work; I also believe gate-keeping academic knowledge is also wrong. It's not surprising that the US legal system found against Sci-hub. Issuing the legally binding statement, that blocking a site by ISP and search engine level, is the real problem. It sets a very tenuous precedent.

How do researchers get paid under the current system? My understanding is that the journals do not pay the scientists that produce the articles. Am I mistaken in this?

Re: US Court Grants ISPs and Search Engine Blockade of Sci-Hub

#27

Post by Scaevolus »

PenguinCoder wrote: post #7
wccrawford wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The blocking of the site by ISPs and search engines is the bad part, IMO. Other than that, it seems pretty standard. And it's kind of dumb, because they could just get a new domain name, like many of the other torrent sites do. It's effectively worthless.

This is the key takeaway from the article. As much as I agree that researches deserve fair compensation for their work; I also believe gate-keeping academic knowledge is also wrong. It's not surprising that the US legal system found against Sci-hub. Issuing the legally binding statement, that blocking a site by ISP and search engine level, is the real problem. It sets a very tenuous precedent.

Researchers don't receive a cut of the journal access fees. They generally have to pay thousands of dollars to publish in a journal in the first place.

Re: US Court Grants ISPs and Search Engine Blockade of Sci-Hub

#28

Post by ArchReaper »

gooseus wrote: post #21

I support Scihub and all efforts to make the body of human knowledge and scientific research freely available to all humans... especially if any of the research has been funded by taxpayer dollars. I believe that at most, these journals should enjoy a limited copyright that expires after a short time (1-10 years?) after which the papers should be freely available. That being said, this is disappointing to me: > Sci-H…

>This response creates no opportunity to argue a compelling case for why scientific knowledge should not remain pay-walled by publishers and/or establish new legal frameworks for copyright of scientific knowledge.

You somehow think this would have been the correct platform to do that? While being a target of a copyright-infringement lawsuit?

Re: US Court Grants ISPs and Search Engine Blockade of Sci-Hub

#29

Post by Bartweiss »

lykr0n wrote: post #2

I don't want to be that guy, but nothing here seems outlandish. A website is actively violating US law, didn't show up to defend itself, and now facing an injunction. The same happens for foreign entities that do not comply with US law. I'll be interested to see how far this goes, and if any ISPs start blocking the site. With the whole Net Neutrality debate, I'm curious to see if the ISPs change their stance when the…

ISP level blocking seems inherently objectionable.

I agree that "trying to get injunctions against sites breaking US law" is mundane regardless of whether one agrees with the law, but that's not really my concern here. Generally pursuit of actors outside US jurisdiction is either abandoned or done in partnership with foreign governments (e.g. trade secrets theft). What's deeply alarming is the movement towards a UK-style system of ISP blocks against objectionable foreign content.

Re: US Court Grants ISPs and Search Engine Blockade of Sci-Hub

#30

Post by rayiner »

Knufen wrote: post #5

As someone who works in academia (Europe) I understand that scientific papers need hosting and server space and such, but does it really help humanity that all advances will be behind very expensive pay walls? I would argue otherwise. The current trend is not sustainable nor favorable for anyone except parasitic publishers. Edit: I understand the website was breaking the law, but this seems like symptom treating

The law doesn't operate by going back to first principles ("will it really help humanity?") in every case. We've decided copyright is reasonable as a concept, and we evaluate each case by reference to the rules of copyright, without creating special exceptions all over the place.

Nor are any special exceptions necessary. Absolutely nothing prevents scientists and academics from publishing in open-access journals. Scientists and academics do so to cash in on the prestige of the "branded" for-pay journals. Given that they do this voluntarily, why should the law step in and ameliorate the collateral effects of their conduct?

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