
Meet the woman who put 50M stolen articles online (2016) - Jerry2
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/meet-the-woman-who-put-50-million-stolen-articles-online-so-you-can-read-them-for-free-a6964176.html
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dang
Tons of discussion about Sci-Hub from about the time this article was
published last year: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=sci-
hub%20points%3E10&sort=byD...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=sci-
hub%20points%3E10&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)

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finid
_Researchers sign over the copyright and provide their work, often taxpayer
funded, free to publishers who then get other researchers to review the papers
— also free. The publishers then sell journal subscriptions — some titles cost
more than $5,000 a year — back to universities and the federal government. And
if someone wants an article, that costs about $35, so that person is paying
for the research and to read the results._

That's a racket.

~~~
mr337
Nah, it just means you are in the wrong business. /s

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EsotericAlgo
I recognize this is about 15 years too late but stolen is the wrong word. The
vernacular usage of stolen has an inherent bias that some entity is being
deprived which isn't necessarily the case.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _The vernacular usage of stolen has an inherent bias that some entity is
> being deprived_

The concepts of "stealing" an idea, _i.e._ taking credit for someone else's,
and "stealing" someone's spotlight occur in standard vernacular [1]. These
don't concern depriving someone of something they have, but depriving them of
something they _could_ have had. The logic behind modern copyright is that
distribution someone else's content deprives them of _potential_ sales,
royalties, _et cetera_.

There is reasonable debate around whether science, particularly taxpayer-
funded science, should be copyrighted. But arguing you can't "steal" the
intangible runs counter to our culture. A more productive line of argument
lies in attacking what can be copyrighted and for how long.

[1]
[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=steal_INF+idea...](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=steal_INF+idea%2Csteal_INF+_DET_+spotlight&year_start=1950&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cstolen%20idea%3B%2Cc0%3B.t3%3B%2Csteal_INF%20_DET_%20spotlight%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bsteal%20_DET_%20spotlight%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bstole%20_DET_%20spotlight%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bstealing%20_DET_%20spotlight%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bstolen%20_DET_%20spotlight%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bsteals%20_DET_%20spotlight%3B%2Cc0)

~~~
jMyles
> counter to our culture

Whose culture?

The culture that surrounds me seems organized almost chiefly, and at least
largely, around radical freedom of information.

~~~
johncolanduoni
If that's how you're defining the scope of your culture, then why would you
claim to know what the word steal means for those not in your "culture"?

~~~
jMyles
> why would you claim to know what the word steal means for those not in your
> "culture"?

I... didn't do that. I don't think? Did I?

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pigscantfly
Gratuitous misquoting by the Independent here: "But she also acknowledges that
some passwords were obtained using the kind of phishing methods that hackers
use to dupe people out of financial information." based on the quote "It may
be well possible that phished passwords ended up being used at Sci-Hub. I did
not send any phishing emails to anyone myself." I don't understand how an
editor at a major publication allows claims/spin like this with no concrete
evidence unless they are explicitly pushing an agenda (I agree that phishing
is at least probable in this case; it also may be an excuse to protect those
in the password database if it's ever leaked). Wholly fact-based media seems
impossible to find these days.

~~~
branchless
UK newspapers are dying:

[http://imgur.com/NJ4F8Tt.jpg](http://imgur.com/NJ4F8Tt.jpg)

I suspect if you cut out the number the Independent hand out for free via
hotels it would be even worse. I think now they don't even have a physical
edition?

These guys must pay next to nothing and demand articles that get "eyeballs",
produced in little time.

Plus all are captive to their main advertisers: cars, banks, realtors.

Why not just read blogs?

~~~
rusk
That's very interesting. Seems like the FT is the only one to buck the trend -
I wonder what they're doing differently. The Guardian also seems to be
stemming the rot.

Is this a case of two globally oriented forward looking publications that are
embracing new distribution mediums?

I've never read the other ones really - maybe this in itself gives a hint,
though I am just a sample population of '1'.

~~~
rusk
I just noticed The Times in there as well. Okay I'm guessing from these 3 data
points that it might be because they're actually charging for content, but in
exchange actually providing content that is good.

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Dolores12
Copying is not Stealing.

Please, donate. The best library i've ever used - free, accessible and easy to
use - just what library should look like in 2017.

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KKKKkkkk1
"The site can be clunky to use, often sending users to Web pages in foreign
languages."

That has not been my experience. In fact, I'm amazed at how when I paste a
paper title into sci-hub, I get immediately redirected to the paper's PDF. I
doubt such a service could be provided by Google Scholar or by the commercial
publishers even if it were not for the pay walls.

~~~
pliftkl
That rather depends on the papers you are looking for. If someone else has
searched for the same paper before, you get the cached results back.

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offa
Upvoting because I'm interested in the discussion of the ethics surrounding
'leaking' scientific papers out into the Web, not so much in this particular
case itself but as a general sort of act.

HN, what is your opinion on all this?

~~~
krapp
All scientific research should be freely available to the public, without
reservation or condition.

I have my reservations about leaking political or classified information in
some cases, because as Wikileaks has demonstrated, leaks can be used to push a
political agenda, rather than serve the cause of unbiased truth.

But scientific knowledge benefits the progress of humanity as a whole - the
truth doesn't have a political agenda, although it certainly can discredit
political axioms. Trying to keep it contained, controlled or limit its access
to a select few should be considered a crime against humanity.

~~~
HeavenBanned
>All scientific research should be freely available to the public, without
reservation or condition.

Even scientific research on how to build a functional nuclear bomb?

~~~
krapp
Yes, I think so. That research is already public or available on the black
market anyway, and the US built the first nuclear bomb ~70 years ago, so it's
kind of a moot point.

But what would the alternative be? That only the governments which discover
how to build a nuclear bomb understand how it works and what its effects are,
and get to threaten the rest of the world with impunity?

I'm not certain that would be better than the world where everyone at least
understands the underlying science, even if not everyone can build one.

~~~
johncolanduoni
There's a big difference between the nuclear bombs countries with nascent
nuclear programs (like North Korea) can build, and those the US can build. So
unless you're talking about _just_ enough knowledge to build the simplest of
nuclear weapons, it's far from moot.

Everyone _does_ understand the underlying science (or can find it pretty
quickly on the internet), but very few understand the engineering specifics.

------
devoply
It's a very very bad idea if you are going to do this sort of thing to attract
any media attention or to ever talk to them about anything, much less let them
take a picture of you.

~~~
andreyf
Why?

~~~
GuiA
Check out what happened to the last guy:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz)

~~~
andreyf
Well, it makes it pretty darn obvious now that Aaron's prosecution was related
to his political activities and aspirations, no? I know Aaron didn't like this
cynical interpretation of the judicial system, but it seems difficult to argue
against it now...

