Sci Hub repository torrents of scientific papers • Hacker News Board

Re: Sci Hub repository torrents of scientific papers

#211

Post by untilHellbanned » Mon, May 21, 2018, 4:41 PM UTC

votingprawn wrote: post #142

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #25

Not being in a scientific field, one of the previous times this came up I asked if any of the working scientists felt like SciHub had positively impacted their work: exposing them to more papers than they would have read, guiding them in different ways, etc. and the answer was a pretty overwhelming "ohmygodyes". From the outside, it's very difficult to see this as anything but a public good. It certainly seems like l…

I was a researcher at a reasonably big UK University until about 6 months ago, and I used SciHub fairly regularly. Sometimes I used it because we didn't have the right subscription for that publisher to get me the journal I needed, but mainly I used SciHub to access papers I already had the "right" to access. The layers of logins screens, buggy single-sign-on systems, having to be in the right IP address range, not b…

Same exact reasons for me at a big US university.

Re: Sci Hub repository torrents of scientific papers

#212

Post by trumped » Mon, May 21, 2018, 4:48 PM UTC

DmenshunlAnlsis wrote: post #43

facetube wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until the cops kick your door in on copyright infringement charges to "make an example" of someone. Don't think it can't happen.

In over twenty years of piracy, I’ve never actually met someone online who got something more than a pissy email from an ISP. It’s possible to be made an example of, but if you’re not profiting from the piracy it’s vanishingly unlikely. The only people I know of who got more than a token fine were involved in some other criminal enterprise besides just downloading something.

I got one of those letters... I download from other sources now... it's just harder to find older stuff.

Re: Sci Hub repository torrents of scientific papers

#213

Post by anon400232 » Mon, May 21, 2018, 4:49 PM UTC

How are the torrents grouped or organized? What are some good ways to locally recreate the SciHub front-end search functionality?

Re: Sci Hub repository torrents of scientific papers

#214

Post by mistercow » Mon, May 21, 2018, 4:56 PM UTC

Fomite wrote: post #122

ComodoHacker wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me ask you a provocative question. When you build credibility in your field, will you be reviewing papers for free for open access journals?

I'll answer this as a practicing academic: I do, regularly, and with the same willingness and rigor I review papers for other journals.

One thing that's never been clear to me: what benefit do you get from reviewing articles for paid journals? Phrased another way, what stands in the way of a movement where reviewers "go on strike" against anything that isn't open access?

Re: Sci Hub repository torrents of scientific papers

#215

Post by wolfgke » Mon, May 21, 2018, 5:01 PM UTC

Gatsky wrote: post #128

This is a magnificent cultural artifact, a modern day library of Alexandria. That it had to be 'stolen' is disappointing. Wonder how it must feel for Elsevier to have their entire business up on a torrent. Zero sympathy here.

> This is a magnificent cultural artifact, a modern day library of Alexandria. That it had to be 'stolen' is disappointing.

Many of the books in the library of Alexandria were really stolen (not just infringed copyright):

> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Library_of_Alexan...

"The Library at Alexandria was in charge of collecting all the world's knowledge, and most of the staff was occupied with the task of translating works onto papyrus paper. It did so through an aggressive and well-funded royal mandate involving trips to the book fairs of Rhodes and Athens. According to Galen, any books found on ships that came into port were taken to the library, and were listed as "books of the ships". Official scribes then copied these writings; the originals were kept in the library, and the copies delivered to the owners."

Re: Sci Hub repository torrents of scientific papers

#216

Post by 15charlimit » Mon, May 21, 2018, 5:11 PM UTC

sidhu1f wrote: post #197

jacquesm wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Piracy has one USP that the competition lacks that is very hard for them to replicate: convenience.

Is BitTorrent more convenient than Netflix?

Far more convenient when you consider that Netflix's catalog of reasonably mainstream as-seen-in-theaters movies has been shrinking for years.

As the end user I don't care "why" their catalog has been shrinking, I only care that something I watched last year and want to watch again is no longer available on that service.

And no, I'm not going to sign up for a dozen different services just on the off chance that one of them will have what I want to see at any given point.

Re: Sci Hub repository torrents of scientific papers

#217

Post by Vinnl » Mon, May 21, 2018, 5:12 PM UTC

godelski wrote: post #206

DrBazza wrote: post #188

As a former scientist, and researching during the 90s, the publishing system that has arisen where a company can monopolise it, and by that, prevent access, is very unfortunate. No scientist wants their work to be unseen and hidden behind a paywall, but that is what has happened. Worse still, in some fields amateurs can make a reasonable contribution to the field (my experience is observation astronomy), and the curr…

Researcher at a small company here (eg: SBIR work). I can't even tell you how many hours I've wasted looking for access to papers. Can't exactly use something like Sci Hub at work. But once I do find articles, usually with the help of a local university, I am able to do a lot more work. But combine the normal problem of having to run through many papers and add the inability to see beyond an abstract easily. Open acc…

You're probably aware of this already, but to be sure and to help potential other readers, Unpaywall can help you legally find gratis versions of articles: https://unpaywall.org/

Re: Sci Hub repository torrents of scientific papers

#218

Post by contoraria » Mon, May 21, 2018, 5:15 PM UTC

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #25

Not being in a scientific field, one of the previous times this came up I asked if any of the working scientists felt like SciHub had positively impacted their work: exposing them to more papers than they would have read, guiding them in different ways, etc. and the answer was a pretty overwhelming "ohmygodyes". From the outside, it's very difficult to see this as anything but a public good. It certainly seems like l…

From my outsider perspective I mostly agree, I've read a few papers that weren't available for free. But for the opposing perspective, consider that they index curated content and don't curate anything themselves. This is a frequently debated argument. For comparison I'm considering youtube or torrent sites that are swamped with low quality content or outright malware. In effect, the inception of the internet, as far as I know, was motivated precisely by the need to exchange scientific material. But we are still far from a global library, on-line. Coordination does take a significant amount of work. So, if anything, it needs more investment. But whether that needs to be direct financial investment or just a lot of voluntary work from the people for whom the system is kind of working alright at the moment, is not even in the question. Because journals and universities acting as gate keepers setting barriers to entry is seen as elitist and pejorative by the vast majority of the excluded. That involves a lot of indirect criticism of the financial market system. The whole problem involves marketing. Just look at wikipedia, stackexchange or even the stock-exchanges to see what kind of imbalance, for lack of a better word, huge projects incur, virtually invariably.

Re: Sci Hub repository torrents of scientific papers

#219

Post by 0xffff2 » Mon, May 21, 2018, 5:18 PM UTC

mapt wrote: post #20

raister wrote: post #17

Is this legal?

Of course not. Copyright law is extraordinarily restrictive, and you, me, and everybody you know is guilty of violation after violation, easily enough to bankrupt hundreds of millions of people if strict enforcement were applied. SciHub is all normal copyrighted published work; The publishers claim the same commercial status as an album or novel. The fact that there are currently 69 million works bundled means that w…

> Copyright law is extraordinarily restrictive, and you, me, and everybody you know is guilty of violation after violation...

That's a pretty extreme claim. Can you give an example of how the average non-bittorrent-using person regularly violates copyright law?

Re: Sci Hub repository torrents of scientific papers

#220

Post by ksk » Mon, May 21, 2018, 5:46 PM UTC

Vinnl wrote: post #209

ksk wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That dichotomy would only make sense if there were no means to self-publish or choosing a non-paywalled journal.

Well, those means are there (most of the time), but if researchers want a career in academia, most of the time there's no other option than submitting their work to "high impact" journals. I don't think sacrificing their already slim career choices is a reasonable sacrifice to ask when speaking of voluntarism.

>I don't think sacrificing their already slim career choices is a reasonable sacrifice to ask when speaking of voluntarism.

Right, but I don't see how breaking copyright law is a solution to fixing the problem either. The journals are just going to jack up the rates to cover their "losses".

Is there really no other way?