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Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

sciencemag.org

381–390 of 398 posts

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#381
post #236
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. I have gone through academia and am now in industry; the other day I wanted to read and browse basic papers in IEEE Explore for basic knowledge on new topics. Since I am no longer a student, I am willing to pay money - as much as hundreds to get unlimited access. Instead, for hundreds, IEEE explore offers a measly ("generous") 25 downloads a month or some such non-sense It just seemed so miserly of the…

Have you taken a look at deepdyve.com? $40/month ($30/month if bought as an annual subscription) for unlimited online access to a ton of journals, including a bazillion from IEEE: https://www.deepdyve.com/browse/publishers/ieee If you create an account but do not subscribe, you can view all the papers but only for 5 minutes each. You can then subscribe to read the ones you need more of, or purchase access to 5 papers…

I have no doubt other universities offer this, but see if you can join a Universities library, for access to the papers?

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For whatever reason lots of people here seem to disagree. Could any of the 4 downvoters clarify in what conceivable scenario would Aaron still be in prison if he was alive? Had he pled guilty, he would undoubtedly be out by now. And going to trial obviously wasn't a realistic option considering the plea deals he was offered (BTW If someone here disagrees about that, I'd really like to know why.). Read: http://volokh.…

> going to trial obviously wasn't a realistic option considering the plea deals he was offered And that's why plea deals are an injustice. The honest are intimidated into felons, and the criminals never face a judge.

They may be, but I think Aarons case is a particularly bad example of such as I don't think there was ever any question of his guilt.

The law may not be just, but there's little doubt that he violated it.

Considering his charges, Swartz received exceptionally good plea deal offers.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> going to trial obviously wasn't a realistic option considering the plea deals he was offered And that's why plea deals are an injustice. The honest are intimidated into felons, and the criminals never face a judge.

They may be, but I think Aarons case is a particularly bad example of such as I don't think there was ever any question of his guilt. The law may not be just, but there's little doubt that he violated it. Considering his charges, Swartz received exceptionally good plea deal offers.

> Considering his charges, Swartz received exceptionally good plea deal offers.

A non-violent crime shouldn't result in any prison time.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#384
post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may be, but I think Aarons case is a particularly bad example of such as I don't think there was ever any question of his guilt. The law may not be just, but there's little doubt that he violated it. Considering his charges, Swartz received exceptionally good plea deal offers.

> Considering his charges, Swartz received exceptionally good plea deal offers. A non-violent crime shouldn't result in any prison time.

While I very much agree, the law says otherwise.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#385
post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may be, but I think Aarons case is a particularly bad example of such as I don't think there was ever any question of his guilt. The law may not be just, but there's little doubt that he violated it. Considering his charges, Swartz received exceptionally good plea deal offers.

> Considering his charges, Swartz received exceptionally good plea deal offers. A non-violent crime shouldn't result in any prison time.

[deleted]

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#386

One of the reasons the deep learning field is moving so fast is that everything is open access. Generally, it's considered prestigious to present at a conference, and not much gets published in journals. The major conferences have been adopting a model of posting first on arxiv and then submitting to the conference, so the reviewers see the paper at the same time as the general public. The amazing thing is that weeks…

The quality of reviews of conference papers is mostly terrible, though. I've been on both sides of it, here are some major complaints: * There is only one round of reviews, with a binary accept/reject outcome. In case of rejection, feedback cannot be incorporated. In case of acceptance, there is basically no incentive for incorporating feedback, as the paper is already "through" and putting in any more time is consid…

So that sounds like the review system is broken, but not the concept itself. I always had the impression that anyone could review the paper, as in anyone can read a book and write a review about it, and then they all publicly could ask questions about parts of paper that are incorrect, science paper "bugs" if you will, that the author would have to clarify/fix and when there are no more of these "bugs" it is considered as peer reviewed. Although it wouldn't mean there are no more incorrect things, just that nobody asked about them. Also that would mean that mostly people interested in field are involved in review. What you described sounds really detrimental to the whole process. Is peer reviewing so hated between researchers that they need to be assigned and forced a deadline to get papers reviewed?

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#387
From the article:

>>Among the few things she would not disclose is her current location, because she is at risk of financial ruin, extradition, and imprisonment because of a lawsuit launched by Elsevier last year.

Elsevier should be condemned for its greedy acts. People should send them letters of condemnation for their greedy acts, including for this lawsuit.

We can send them e-mails and therein can state, something on the following lines:

>>>

Publisher,

I, a member of academia, am concerned about the hurdles you have put in the path of the progress of science and education. I condemn your behavior and also condemn your decision to file a lawsuit against a person named "Alexandra Elbakyan" to throttle her efforts to spread the publicly funded research knowledge to the public without any "middlemen" like you. I applaud her efforts behind the sci-hub project that was far long due. You might have forgotten by now, but due to, and/or by, the middlemen like you, a noble person named Aaron Swartz was harassed to no end and it must be due to the pain and stress inflicted in that harassment he committed suicide. Please wake up and get rid of your mean tactics and save whatever little goodwill you might have managed to retain. No thanks, as I cannot thank you.

Personally I have sent them a mail to this effect. Haven't got any response, it seems obvious.

Are there any legal repercussions that these mean, greedy publishers can pursue to harass the email senders, especially in USA? I am not from USA. Legal experts there can advise.

No need to mention, I am a huge fan of Alexandra Elbakyan and Aaron Swartz. They are great heroes of modern times. The thoughts of Aaron bring tears to my eyes. They are legendary and remind me of (may be fictional) Robin Hood [1].

I also thank all the academics who are actively helping the sci-hub project and all the people who are helping in their own capacity.

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

edit: added thanks to all academics and people.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#388
post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is "scientific" so long as it is subjected to unbiased skeptical experimental evaluation. That's all it means to be "scientific."

Science needn't mean experiments. Just ask astronomers.

Hypothesizing then observing or reviewing past observations to verify the hypothesis is a form of experimentation. Every revelation of astronomy has been the result of experiments.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#389

The author refers to Napster as a "pirate site." I stopped reading at that point because I realized the technical info in the document is likely to be incorrect.

Napster was famously run by a group that would board container ships full of music CDs as they rounded the Horn of Africa, kill the crews, rip the CDs to MP3, the burn and sink the ships. At least that's my impression from reading press releases at the time.

Re: Who's downloading pirated papers? Everyone

#390
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does academia put up with this stupid system? Academics are already the ones doing all the peer review on their own, free of payment, right? So why not say "Hey, we'll set up our own servers, host papers free for all to access, and then note which ones pass the same levels of scrutiny we'd apply as reviewers were we reviewing them for Nature, Science, Cell, The Lancet, whatever"? Doesn't seem like the journals ac…

It reminds me of the electoral college system: people complain about it and realize it is outmoded system but it will never get replaced because the people with the power to actually change it won't since the system got them the power in the first place. Academic publishing isn't quite that bad since it is slowly changing but I think it is similar. Established faculty largely don't care because they are established (…

The Electoral College still offers a modicum of protection against the tyranny of the masses. In a pure popular vote system, presidential candidates wouldn't have to educate themselves enough to pretend to care about the lives outside the US's 10 largest cities.
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