
Student may be jailed for posting scientist’s thesis on web - ALee
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2014/08/student-may-be-jailed-for-posting-scientists-thesis-on-web.html
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mcguire
"But two years later, in 2013, he was notified that the author of the thesis
was suing him for violating copyright laws."

I'm assuming this means the author of the thesis would like not to be cited in
any future research. Unfortunately,

"He says he does not want to 'put pressure on this person'. 'My lawyer has
tried unsuccessfully to establish contacts with the complainant: I am open to
negotiate and get to an agreement to move this issue out of the criminal
trial,' he told Nature."

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joshvm
Theses aren't open access?

In the UK if you're funded by a research council (like almost everyone is
here), your thesis is normally open access because the public paid for it.
Students are generally awful at disseminating theses and dissertations, but in
theory it's available for anyone to see (if only through library services).
Whether this extends to copying and posting to Scribd I don't know, but in
principle I don't see why it would be an issue.

In some cases if your work has commercial applications you can request to
withhold publication for 6-12 months, but ultimately it becomes freely
available.

I assume if you have private funding then things are a little different, but
most progressive universities are moving towards open access publication
across the board. My department will pay the cost to get papers with 'gold
access' or whatever they call it, it's not like we get any money from
paywalling our research and it's more likely we get citations if it isn't.

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catbox
> Theses aren't open access?

Not unless the thesis's author pays about three figures to make it open
access. The only other option (without spending a ton of effort to fight the
system) if you want to graduate is to let Elsevier charge people money, a tiny
amount of which they will forward to you (if you bother to let them know where
you currently live).

> In the UK if you're funded by a research council (like almost everyone is
> here), your thesis is normally open access because the public paid for it.
> Students are generally awful at disseminating theses and dissertations, but
> in theory it's available for anyone to see (if only through library
> services). Whether this extends to copying and posting to Scribd I don't
> know, but in principle I don't see why it would be an issue.

In the US, most Ph.D.'s research is paid for with federal grants. I agree that
they _should_ be open access, but I wasn't willing to pay even more just so
that other people could read my thesis. Everything is in (non-open access)
journals, so anyone who really cared about my research could just find it
there. If someone really wanted to read my dissertation, I'd be more than
happy to just send them the same PDF I gave Elsevier, and I suspect that
virtually all other Ph.D.s feel the same way.

~~~
joshvm
Sounds like it's a regional and/or departmental issue then. I initially
thought it was just our group that would pay for Gold/Green access, but turns
out it's uni-wide.

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readerrrr
Does the plaintiff not realize that if this gets some media/internet traction
his paper will be available everywhere.

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justizin
obviously, that is the goal. ;d

~~~
readerrrr
Who would risk his reputation in scientific circles, to get known by the
general public.

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pavel_lishin
> _The student, who is currently studying for a master’s degree in
> conservation of protected areas at the National University of Costa Rica in
> Heredia, refuses to reveal who is suing him. He says he does not want to
> “put pressure on this person”._

Surprisingly magnanimous.

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ExpiredLink
Isn't a thesis public by definition? At least after some justifiable
confidentiality period?

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jacquesm
Does anybody have a link to that paper?

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hnarayanan
I wish someone read my thesis, let alone found it interesting enough to share
it with their friends.

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dang
Url changed from [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/biology-student-
fa...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/biology-student-faces-jail-
time-for-publishing-scientist-s-thesis-on-scribd/), which points to this.

