Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

torrentfreak.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 129 posts

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

#71

Post by danielford »

cobookman wrote: post #16
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

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.

Community colleges like the one I work at can't afford the journal fees. One of my assignments involves reading several peer-reviewed articles on a narrow topic and writing an explanation of the research. Every semester I have students that struggle with finishing this assignment because the articles they need are inaccessible.

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

#72

Post by analognoise »

stale2002 wrote: post #64
anigbrowl wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's descriptive, not prescriptive. Rayiner isn't endorsing the law itself, he's just telling you how it operates. People often seem to have trouble distinguishing between positive statements ('this is how things work') and normative statements ('this is how things ought to work.') I agree with you that the laws are corrupt and should be changed, but that's going to involve refactoring the entire legal system on diff…

We don't need to rewrite anything. Instead, just start breaking laws that are corrupt, like copyrite laws, and eventually they will be unenforceable. Copyright laws are already mostly unenforceable against individuals. Laws only work because society mostly follows them. The ones that people DON'T follow, may as well not even exist.

Careful with this. Having a number of laws people ignore can lead to situations where all of a sudden the existing power structure starts to enforce them arbitrarily (usually against political opponents and/or an 'out' grou p).

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

#73

Post by pmyteh »

Bedon292 wrote: post #66
stale2002 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone did. It's called Sci-Hub.

Sci-Hub is not a Journal itself. It is hosting other Journals' data. However https://www.plos.org/ does exist and it is a free to access Journal. Unfortunately it is pay to publish. I am unaware of any completely free Journal on both the reader and author end.

There a few. I published a paper in the Journal of Information Policy once, whose (small) expenses are covered by a grant, IIRC from libraries that would otherwise have to pay through a publisher. Very field specific, though.

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

#74

Post by jimnotgym »

Bedon292 wrote: post #66
stale2002 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone did. It's called Sci-Hub.

Sci-Hub is not a Journal itself. It is hosting other Journals' data. However https://www.plos.org/ does exist and it is a free to access Journal. Unfortunately it is pay to publish. I am unaware of any completely free Journal on both the reader and author end.

Isn't that what the World Wide Web was designed to do, before the web app? Why not just publish online on a university site, or a site for your specialty?

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

#75

Post by mnm1 »

avh02 wrote: post #6
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.

I grew up in a country where certain websites (you know, like adult sites) are blocked, I'm not comparing this to that exactly, but isn't it strange to be told that your ISP is hereby not allowed to provide you access to a website? Especially when nobody unanimously agrees that it's a bad thing? (I'm not here to argue the ethics/morality of it, but pointing out that it has proponents on both sides) I mean, I know blo…

Strange? Yes, it's strange that the first amendment be ignored by the courts themselves when ordering such a clearly unconstitutional injunction. It basically boils down to the government telling ISPs and other sites what legal text they can and cannot write on their sites. I cannot think of a clearer, more direct violation of the first amendment.

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

#76

Post by landryraccoon »

BearGoesChirp wrote: post #69
landryraccoon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Are we counting only monetary payments? I'm assuming there is some benefit that is given to the scientist for publishing, especially in cases where the scientist pay to publish. It isn't likely at all a simple relationship between two parties, but I doubt that the scientists are being irrational by using a publisher.

Sure, but how does paying the publisher enter into this? The scientist may well be happy to have their paper shared freely after publication, since they receive no reward from the publisher. Scientists are only being irrational if they have choice in the matter. If they are forced to publish by the community / university, they may well resent being forced to use such publishers.

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

#77

Post by notyourday »

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…

This is the icky part:

* by appearing in the US court defenders would put themselves into the court's jurisdiction. It is a virtual certainty that the defendants will lose.

* by not appearing in the US court the defendants would get a default judgement against them. A third party might claim that a court ordering ISP blocking becomes a kangaroo court, but that third party has no standing in the case and unless for some strange reason a judge decides to do more than just follow a default procedure whatever is asked in the lawsuit would be granted to the plaintiff.

Edit: In theory, a plaintiff can ask as a part of a relief to make a defendant walk around a block for three hours, making donkey noises and if a defendant does not show up it may very well end up being awarded as a part of a default judgement. By appearing, the defendant most likely can get this part of the remedy tossed but at the same time by appearing the defendant would place itself into court's jurisdiction.

So it is a no win case for a defendant.

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

#78

Post by jimnotgym »

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…

>A website is actively violating US law, didn't show up to defend itself,

Presuming, of course, that the US has jurisdiction over the whole internet.

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

#79

Post by [deleted] »

aw3c2 wrote: post #46
HarryHirsch wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worrying thing is that now there's a single point of failure: Elbakyan. She has the power to cut off anyone she wants to, and she did it in the past to some Russian university that dared criticize her.

Do your part and start mirroring parts of it! http://libgen.io/scimag/repository_torrent/

[deleted]

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

#80

Post by jklein11 »

Do articles that are published in journals meet some sort of specification? If you find a study that was published in a journal do you automatically find it more credible than a random article you find on the internet? If so, what has the journal done to achieve that credibility.

The way I see it, the value academic journals provide is to verify that the study is from a reputable source. It's not the distribution of the articles that you are paying for, it is the curation.

Something like Sci-Hub would not be able to exist without the publications first verifying that the studies are legitimate.

I know very little about the world of academic publishing, so I'm not sure if my take on this situation is totally off.

Post reply on HN