Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#281

Post by pjerem » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 7:16 AM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #274

crumbshot wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's copying, not theft. The latter deprives someone of an item, the former increases its availability. An important distinction when considering the purpose and goals of Sci-Hub.

> It's copying, not theft. > The latter deprives someone of an item ... It's depriving people of money, which is not a trivial asset.

It’s depriving journals from money they could make from publications when they have already charged the authors to publish them.

There is no moral dilemma here : accessing an article thru Sci-Hub deprives nobody from getting its due money. Scientists unfortunately continues not being paid for the paper, journals continues being paid by universities to review the paper, but nobody wants to pay just to read a paper from the journal when it already has been paid for.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#282

Post by danohuiginn » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 7:20 AM UTC

ajb wrote: post #30

Given how beneficial sci-hub is, there ought to be some way that the scientific community can formally recognise this, as a way of legitimizing her cause. Some ways I can think of: * Get her elected as rector of a university. Contraversial figures are sometimes elected as Rector, at least in the UK, because students are the electorate. However for the same reason this isn't considered especially prestigious by people…

From the article:

[Publishers claim sites like Sci-Hub] “have no incentive to ensure the accuracy of scientific articles, no incentive to ensure published papers meet ethical standards, and no incentive to retract or correct articles if issues arise.”

The correct response to this should be to always note in citations when a paper was accessed through sci-hub. Then the reader is warned, and can compare against the canonical version if they are worried.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#283

Post by nxpnsv » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 7:21 AM UTC

cantrevealname wrote: post #161

Anyone remember Napster? There were extremely obscure musical recordings that were instantly found on Napster that are impossible to find even today. It took a long time for anyone to rebuild that data to the level of usefulness that Napster had. If Sci-Hub is forced to shut down due to legal pressure, technical problems, running out of money, or the founder losing interest, it would take a long time for anyone to du…

For me soulseek was amazing to find obscure recordings.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#284

Post by miohtama » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 7:28 AM UTC

danohuiginn wrote: post #282

ajb wrote: post #30

Given how beneficial sci-hub is, there ought to be some way that the scientific community can formally recognise this, as a way of legitimizing her cause. Some ways I can think of: * Get her elected as rector of a university. Contraversial figures are sometimes elected as Rector, at least in the UK, because students are the electorate. However for the same reason this isn't considered especially prestigious by people…

From the article: [Publishers claim sites like Sci-Hub] “have no incentive to ensure the accuracy of scientific articles, no incentive to ensure published papers meet ethical standards, and no incentive to retract or correct articles if issues arise.” The correct response to this should be to always note in citations when a paper was accessed through sci-hub. Then the reader is warned, and can compare against the can…

Publishers have little incentive to ensure the accuracy of papers as well...

The science has changed to fake paper mill to advance the careers of people in the countries with weak institutions.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00733-5

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#285

Post by kzrdude » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 7:30 AM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #67

kzrdude wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That metaphor backfirews pretty hard IMO, is that intentional?

How so? Everyone running a light together is the expected behavior if you change the color of the light. In other words, it describes nothing that isn't occurring constantly everywhere. Where does the metaphor backfire?

Imagine an intersection with 3 independent entrances. Normally 1 is green and 2 red. If everyone runs red lights, then we have cars entering from 3 ways instead of the normal 1. The result is collisions in the middle of the intersection.

"Running a red light" does not just mean "go when it's red" but it explicitly means "transgressing a stop signal". That there can be stop signals on multiple entrances also is complicating and sets up the crash.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#286

Post by trasz » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 7:32 AM UTC

nzmsv wrote: post #237

jorvi wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very confused, why would she ever have to comply with orders of an Indian (or indeed, US) court if she resides in Europe?

She doesn't, but many people really really want to change this. See this discussion from a week ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27662701 The topic of borders and the Internet is a really weird one in general. Somehow the very same people who would like Alexandra to flout any laws will jump up and down and yell "Google should be forced to do what my country tells it". Personally I find this baffling.

Those are completely different situations. Google should obey countries they earn money from. Sci-Hub doesn’t make money.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#287

Post by crimsoneer » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 7:37 AM UTC

kirillzubovsky wrote: post #238

Could someone with knowledge of the matter explain why scientists still publish to these journals, and still sign up for access? It seems like as long as every university in the world can just switch to a blog a do away with publications, they'd save a lot of money, improve science, and reduce complexity overnight. Why are paid journals still a thing?

Sadly, there's no credible alternative to peer review, and nobody has come up with a good system to do that free. Preprint repositories are a start, but you then go on to publish so you can get citations etc. Alternatives are being built (https://science-octopus.org/) but nothing with credibility and scale yet

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#288

Post by dmos62 » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 7:42 AM UTC

jacobolus wrote: post #265

IshKebab wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For researchers in most universities almost every paper is obtainable without scihub.

This is not true for most universities around the world. Only wealthy ones in first-world countries. All of my father’s academic colleagues in Mexico use Sci-Hub daily, and rely on it for access to literature. But beyond that, there are paywalled journals which Harvard does not subscribe to. There are journals which the University of California does not subscribe to. (Or pick your favorite university, and there will…

It's obscene that scientific literature is walled away from the public.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#289

Post by capableweb » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 7:46 AM UTC

qiqitori wrote: post #271

mkl wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only the existing bits. New publications wouldn't be included, so eventually the archive would become less relevant and stop being shared. There's significant cost for the required storage (currently 77TB according to andyxor's comment).

77TB (or 104 TB) sounds expensive, but many people reading this could buy that kind of storage with just one month's salary. (SeaGate IronWolf Pro 16 TB, currently $521 on Amazon)

77 / 16 = 5.5 (6 disks) at $521 per disk turns into $3126. Seems only 11 countries in the world has a higher salary than $3126[1], and probably people wouldn't buy something like that with their entire monthly salary, so at least $5000 a month is required to be able to just dispose $3126 for some drives. That leaves 5 countries with a average salary higher than $5000.

Granted, the source might not be the best, nor using average salaries as a signal either, but to say that many people can spend something like that on a whim seems ignorant at best.

- [1] https://www.worlddata.info/average-income.php

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#290

Post by pell » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 7:53 AM UTC

dmos62 wrote: post #288

jacobolus wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true for most universities around the world. Only wealthy ones in first-world countries. All of my father’s academic colleagues in Mexico use Sci-Hub daily, and rely on it for access to literature. But beyond that, there are paywalled journals which Harvard does not subscribe to. There are journals which the University of California does not subscribe to. (Or pick your favorite university, and there will…

It's obscene that scientific literature is walled away from the public.

Especially when the public often paid for said research at least in part.