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Sci-Hub users cost ASA journals thousands of downloads

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Re: Sci-Hub users cost ASA journals thousands of downloads

#81

Those aren't lost sales. Nobody sane would pay $40 or so for a 20 pages paper. Even if Scihub didn't exist. Publishers know nobody pays that. There are other options free for academic, such as subscriptions universities pay for or inter-library loans. Non-academic clients may try asking somebody who has a subscription access for a given paper (I know I did provide paper PDFs a few times when asked). Publishers don't…

My roommate is a student with full access to basically all journals. Funny enough, he still uses scihub because it is easier to use.

Visitors to university libraries reportedly continue to be harassed by campus police officers for "overusing" the taxpayer-funded electronic resources which they are supposed to be making available to members of the general public in exchange for the generous property tax exemptions (under so-called PILOT agreements) that they receive from local and state government.

At MIT, a few years after the arrest of Aaron Swartz, a prominent researcher from Mass General Hospital was threatened one afternoon with arrest by an MIT police officer for the alleged "crime" of using one of the library computer terminals for "longer than an hour."

It's worth remembering then that there are some out there who are using SciHub now because they don't want to go to jail for trying to access the same content through more "legally legit" channels.

Re: Sci-Hub users cost ASA journals thousands of downloads

#82
post #78
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the legal situation on this? I'd love to seed. I even have the space for quite a lot but seeding illegal content in Germany is a big nono.

> but seeding illegal content the content isn't illegal, the act of copying it might be

An important distinction frequently blurred by copyright maximalists. Thanks for pointing it out.

Re: Sci-Hub users cost ASA journals thousands of downloads

#84

For those who support sci-hub's mission and would like to help ensure it can never be taken away, you may be interested in the following project to lay the groundwork necessary for a widely-replicated, decentralized version of the repository: https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/ed9byj/library... All of the documents accessed through sci-hub are archived by the library genesis project and made available as t…

Aaron Swartz may no longer be with us, but his spirit lives on. It's now up to us to carry on the fight for which he paid so dearly. Has anyone proposed naming an "information making free" service after him yet?

I like that idea but I'd like to reserve it for something that actually makes impact rather than for someone just starting using Aaron's name. Also, I think you should always contact the family first to ask for permission.

Re: Sci-Hub users cost ASA journals thousands of downloads

#85
post #52
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could help, but I cannot afford at least 70TB even for myself..

Then this comment isn't for you, but rather other HN readers. If you believe in the importance of science, and if you're a software engineer at FAAAANG, then you can afford a 75+45 TB (scihub+libgen) hard drive array. If you are making $300,000/year then a $5-10k hobby project to store distilled human progress is something that you could make financially possible for yourself. Consider doing this, because this might…

And of course you can partner with some other like-minded folks.

Re: Sci-Hub users cost ASA journals thousands of downloads

#87
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then this comment isn't for you, but rather other HN readers. If you believe in the importance of science, and if you're a software engineer at FAAAANG, then you can afford a 75+45 TB (scihub+libgen) hard drive array. If you are making $300,000/year then a $5-10k hobby project to store distilled human progress is something that you could make financially possible for yourself. Consider doing this, because this might…

And of course you can partner with some other like-minded folks.

For sourcing drives probably better to go with buying external 10 TB drives (and shucking them). Make a JBOD.. I dunno.

A quick ebay search right now shows used LTO8 drive for $3K (same as new), LTO7 for $1.8K, LTO6 for $0.5K, LTO5 for $0.15K. If you shop around, you can find much better deals.

Here are some tape costs:

LTO-5 (1.5TB/$19.60 = $13.07/TB) LTO-6(2.5TB/$22.58=$9.03/TB) LTO-7 (6TB/$57.95=$9.66/TB) LTO-7 type M (9TB/$57.95=$6.44/TB) LTO-8 (12TB/$134.25=$11.19/TB)

Breakevens:

    LTO8=300T
    LTO7=300T
    LTO6=75T
    LTO5=50T
    LTO4 and below=never
Of course without a tape robot, no one should be using LTO5--there's some personal inconvenience cutoff for everyone.

Re: Sci-Hub users cost ASA journals thousands of downloads

#88

For those who support sci-hub's mission and would like to help ensure it can never be taken away, you may be interested in the following project to lay the groundwork necessary for a widely-replicated, decentralized version of the repository: https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/ed9byj/library... All of the documents accessed through sci-hub are archived by the library genesis project and made available as t…

There are some BitTorrent BEPs you might be interested in:

- HTTP seeding, allows normal web servers to serve as backup seeds: http://bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0019.html - Torrent signing, uses digital signatures to prove authenticity of data: http://bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0035.html - Arbitrary data stored in DHT, would allow publishing new versions of torrents without a central point of failure: http://bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0044.html - Updating torrents, allows torrents to be updated with new data: http://bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0046.html - Distributed torrent feeds, specification for torrents of torrents: http://bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0049.html

They aren't widely implemented, sadly, but if they were, one could publish and update a torrent of torrents via the DHT, removing any central point of failure.

Re: Sci-Hub users cost ASA journals thousands of downloads

#89
post #2

,,I do not, however, contribute anything to the system; I free-ride off their criminality'' The writer has to constatly remind me that running the proxy is a crime, but using it - even if she knows that it's not the legitimate way to get the information- is not. This may be true, still I don't like the tone, as clearly sci-hub is providing the huge value to people, not her. I wouldn't be surprised if some life saving…

I don't use sci-hub, but the framing "Sci-Hub users cost ASA journals thousands of downloads" presumes something: it presumes that without sci-hub, ASA journals would have thousands of more downloads. This could very well be false: without sci-hub, people might instead use arxiv and the like; perhaps sci-hub brings journals thousands of downloads they would not have if sci-hub didn't exist. As I don't use it I can't…

Requesting a song from a DJ so you can tape it from the radio for free costs record labels millions!

Re: Sci-Hub users cost ASA journals thousands of downloads

#90

Times change. Sometimes laws -even once good laws- can end up becoming obviously absurd. When that happens in a democracy, the laws can be changed. With all the people using Sci-Hub, I wonder if it is becoming possible to make legislation to either or both * Declare Sci-Hub and its practices legal outright, and make it the new normal. * Carve out extra protections for open access to science in general.

Oh god! What if we made sci-hub legal though? We might usher in a golden age of science at the cost of short-changing parasitic middlemen!
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