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Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

sciencemag.org

261–270 of 398 posts

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#261
post #177
post #26

If anyone is having trouble accessing https://scihub.io (the site providing the papers) you can find the site directly at the ip address: https://31.184.194.81/ ... Apparently the domain name was seized. The certificate is for sci-hub.io (safe to accept). Or you can just connect to http://31.184.194.81/ if you don't want to bother with the warnings (and are ok with DOIs and papers being transmitted without encryption…

Have there been attempts at dispersing the whole collection of papers through torrents or IPFS? The goal here is not to have a central location with a pretty web page but to make the content freely accessibly everywhere by anyone. Distributing it over thousands of nodes would achieve that goal.

I believe that libgen torrents are available, which, as I understand it, are basically a mirror of the content available from scihub. I don't have a lot of information on it now and can't research it from work.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#262
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My post was not comparing good or evil. I was saying that simply because you feel something does not make it so. 1 + 1 = 2, regardless of how I feel about the numbers or operators.

Ah, my mistake. What would your logical explanation be for this then?

The math equation?

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will comment on it from my point of view (theoretical CS PhD student): > What's wrong with giving other researchers the ability to rate and comment on a paper. I do not see nothing inherently bad with this (provided very good moderation tools are in place). However... * > I would argue it works just as well a this journal reputation system * As a journal reputation system, possibly; although I find that experts hav…

Why do reviewers work for free? And why scientists agree to give away their work for free?

Reviewers work for free for a few reasons reasons. First, it's prestigious to be a reviewer for a top journal and very beneficial for getting tenure. Second, it allows you to create connections with other top researchers. Third, it's giving back to the community by doing a service that needs to be done.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#264
post #240
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"by giving users the ability to rate a scientific paper." LOL! No. Ratings are nearly useless. By which I mean I don't know how I would incorporate ratings into my own research. How do you keep a ratings system from being a proxy for popularity, rather than a measure of novelty or utility? How do you keep it from being easily gamed? Does a "5.2" for a 1995 paper have the same meaning as a "5.2" for a 2010 paper? "You…

Is it practical and desirable to have it both ways? Be published in a journal but also publish it on your own blog for free access? So if you publish a paper titled "XYZ" in a journal and also put it on your blog, making sure your blog is visible to search engines - anyone searching for the paper's title "XYZ" will find it for free on your blog? (I'm not involved with the science community)

You're frequently not allowed to self-publish your manuscripts for free if they're submitted to a journal. The publishing agreement you sign precludes it

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#265
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"by giving users the ability to rate a scientific paper." LOL! No. Ratings are nearly useless. By which I mean I don't know how I would incorporate ratings into my own research. How do you keep a ratings system from being a proxy for popularity, rather than a measure of novelty or utility? How do you keep it from being easily gamed? Does a "5.2" for a 1995 paper have the same meaning as a "5.2" for a 2010 paper? "You…

> How do you keep a ratings system from being a proxy for popularity, rather than a measure of novelty or utility? How do you keep it from being easily gamed? To respond to this particular point, I'm not familiar with any characteristics of the academic journal system which prevent these problems either. Name recognition is often key to getting into competitive journals, which is just another way of calling it an eas…

Traditionally peer review is done anonymously from both sides. However, it is often possible to get a good idea of who the author is based on their related work, style and choice of references. This is particularly the case where the field is very specialised and there are only a few people qualified to judge papers.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#266
post #173

If the business model of Elsevier/etc somehow collapses, I wonder how universities will make hiring decisions? They high fees of their journals are effectively a recruitment or candidate selection service paid by university libraries and serving departments when they hire faculty. Perhaps they'll have to revert to assessing applicants on their merits instead of such arbitrary metrics as the impact factor of a journal…

How do they do it in CS? People there communicate with arxiv links, not dois.

They still publish in conferences. A lot just happen to put their stuff on arxiv first

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will comment on it from my point of view (theoretical CS PhD student): > What's wrong with giving other researchers the ability to rate and comment on a paper. I do not see nothing inherently bad with this (provided very good moderation tools are in place). However... * > I would argue it works just as well a this journal reputation system * As a journal reputation system, possibly; although I find that experts hav…

Why do reviewers work for free? And why scientists agree to give away their work for free?

Reviewers don't really work for free; it's generally accepted that reviewing is part of their salaried job.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#268
post #9

While pirating music or movies, one may try justify ones actions, but deep down it feels wrong. This doesn't even feel wrong. These parasites had it coming.

I don't feel wrong pirating music or movies (especially considering it's legal in my country). I think trying to apply laws of limited amounts of goods (physical objects) to unlimited amount of goods (digital files) is silly.

These unlimited goods comes from very limited and finite resources called humans. We cannot create a loophole in the previous economy recklessly. I'm not fond of labels and studios getting fat for absurd reasons, but structure is required for machines to function.

Personally I stopped chasing music or movies. Mostly because nothing of that era appeals to me anymore :D (I also abused it younger and don't feel the need to binge watch as before and also prefer to pick a few stuff to give money to to support creators putting nice work).

That said, I do grab some old alternative stuff from time to time. Quite often they're not buyable anyway. Release the krakens hollywood.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#269
post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't feel wrong pirating music or movies (especially considering it's legal in my country). I think trying to apply laws of limited amounts of goods (physical objects) to unlimited amount of goods (digital files) is silly.

The laws are silly, I think we all agree on that. The big record labels are silly, most of us probably agree on that too. It still feels wrong when popular artists do not get paid for their work because it's more convenient for people to pirate it. I mean, creative/artistic efforts take a lot of time, regardless of how easy reproducible the results are. By paying for their previous songs, you're basically funding the…

> It still feels wrong when popular artists do not get paid for their work because it's more convenient for people to pirate it.

Popular artists barely get paid for the sale of their music. They earn the bulk of their money from touring and merchandise sales (see: finite things).

Given that, piracy is actually far more detrimental to the publisher/label than it is to the artist because it could mean an additional fan to purchase another ticket at a show or buy another t-shirt at a merch table.

In fact, by charging money for the music, it actively discourages people from listening to it because they can't afford it or already spent their budget on artists they already know and like. In an industry where gaining fans is the most important thing you can do, this seems counterproductive.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#270
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Journals are used as a proxy for quality. A publication in "Science" or "Nature" is generally regarded as being better than a publication in, say, the "Proceedings of the National Academy of Science". Bibliographic metrics, like the number of publications and where they are published, are use as a proxy for the quality of someone's research. It can affect grant funding and career advancement. Researchers can publish…

I'm confused by this. The researchers don't get paid for their paper, and it seems like the peer reviewers don't get paid for doing the peer review: http://www.nature.com/news/open-access-the-true-cost-of-scie... So why exactly are publications locking these papers behind massively expensive paywalls when writing them and reviewing them are being done for free?

Because they can and academic scientists don't do anything to change the status quo.
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