
Sci-Hub tears down academia's “illegal” copyright paywalls - cinquemb
https://torrentfreak.com/sci-hub-tears-down-academias-illegal-copyright-paywalls-150627/
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habitue
While I'm pretty sure the legal theory being espoused here has no chance in
court, the fact remains that what Sci-Hub is doing is a good thing. Hopefully
in a few decades when we finally get sane copyright laws, or open access
journals become the standard instead of the exception, we'll be able to look
back on this differently.

For those saying "there are open access journals, you aren't forced to publish
with Elsevier" you're wrong. If you want a PhD and they require publications,
you publish where there is a tradition of publishing or it doesn't count. If
you're looking for tenure, they care about the prestige of the journals you
publish in. You can make a political statement if you're already tenured, but
most don't have that luxury.

~~~
whyenot
> If you want a PhD and they require publications, you publish where there is
> a tradition of publishing or it doesn't count.

Most PhD programs require a single publication. It's called a _dissertation_.
Sometimes individual chapters are formatted with an eye towards publication in
a particular journal, but I'm not aware of any program, at least in the
biological sciences that requires journal publications to get a degree.

~~~
habitue
It's probably different in different fields. In CS it's common for the
dissertation to be a compilation of several published papers

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rayiner
The article is incoherent. Also, the quotation of the U.N. declaration of
human rights is incomplete:

> Article 27.

> (1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the
> community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its
> benefits. > (2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and
> material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic
> production of which he is the author.

Aside from the fact that the UNDHR doesn't directly bind anyone in the U.S. it
explicitly protects the "material interests" in scientific productions.
Copyright is a _human right_ under the UNDHR.

Elsevier's business model is built simply on scientists exchanging their
material interest in their publications from the publicity that comes from
being published in one of its affiliated publications.

~~~
jacobolus
In many cases, papers from 20 or 50 years ago, which were once the property of
small journals run mostly-independently by their editorial boards, are now the
property of one of the big journal aggregators, after they bought up all kinds
of journals and their archives for relative peanuts.

Dead authors of decades-old basic research originally published their papers
where they thought they would be spread widely (and often out-of-band
distributed preprints or xeroxes to each-other; it’s not like the authors were
excessively worried about copyright or decades-later royalties). But now,
through factors entirely out of their control and irrelevant to their original
preferences, those papers are being locked away in a paywalled archive to
support an aggregator’s rent-seeking.

Century-long copyright is bad enough for books and songs and films. It’s
absolutely disastrous for science.

Even today, scientists aren’t publishing in big journals for the “publicity”
per se. They’re doing it because they need to for hiring/tenure.

Elsevier and their ilk have basically managed to insert themselves in the
middle of a big game everyone was playing where previously money was only an
incidental part of the game so nobody paid much attention or considered what
would happen if actors with malicious intent got involved. Once firmly in
place, they started demanding ransom, and it caught everyone else off guard.
Essentially everyone else (libraries, researchers, government grant agencies,
universities, the general public) would be happier if they were gone, but for
the moment no one knows how to get rid of them.

The tactics employed by the journal aggregators, such as forcing universities
to buy bundles of thousands of irrelevant journals they don’t care about in
order to have access to the handful with useful stuff in them, are shameless
thuggery.

~~~
linhchi
i support the view that publishers are getting outright evil just because they
can and no one knows how to get rid of them.

in the old time the information exchange was too expensive for individuals
living in different mountains. but now we have the internet.

many authors upload their paper on the internet or give out if you request,
they are also happy to discuss about it.

~~~
wolfgke
> i support the view that publishers are getting outright evil just because
> they can and no one knows how to get rid of them.

We do know how to get rid of them (cf.
[https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamj...](https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly2008_djvu.txt)):

"There is no justice in following unjust laws. It's time to come into the
light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our
opposition to this private theft of public culture.

We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share
them with the world. We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it
to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We
need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks.
We need to fight for Guerilla Open Access.

With enough of us, around the world, we'll not just send a strong message
opposing the privatization of knowledge — we'll make it a thing of the past.
Will you join us? "

~~~
linhchi
oh when i read your comment i was thinking of Aaron Swartz and then it turned
out to be him.

this is what libgen, sci-hub are doing but they are struggling, they change
domain name often these days maybe due to legal matters with publishers.

i still think that libgen and sci-hub will prevail, like thepiratebay and
kickass. the community supporting and needing them is real and "we dont need
permission to do the right thing".

edit: sorry but i dont why my above comment is downvoted, is it too naive or
negative in some sense?

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geographomics
My university blocks access to sci-hub on the claim that it has previously
hosted malware. Apparently it attempted to infiltrate the visiting computer
and act as a proxy server and/or grab the user's institutional login
credentials, in order to access otherwise pay walled literature. At least,
that's what I was told when I complained it was blocked.

Fortunately, they left libgen
([http://gen.lib.rus.ec/](http://gen.lib.rus.ec/)) unblocked - as they weren't
concerned about copyright issues, only malware threats - which has an entire
searchable mirror of all papers and books downloaded via sci-hub. It's a
fantastic, incredibly useful resource and I hope it continues to operate
unscathed.

~~~
lcswi
Tor Browser might work for you to circumvent the censorship.

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belorn
When reading about accessibility of research papers, I am always reminded of
the Die Gedanken Sind Frei talk by Eben Moglen, and later how black slaves
were forbidden by law to learn reading and writing.

 _We have associated the struggle for human equality with the struggle for
freedom of knowledge and we have associated them rightly: they belong
together. Because the recognition of individual possibility, to allow each to
be what she and he can be, rests inherently upon the availability of
knowledge; the perpetuation of ignorance is the beginning of slavery._

------
wolfgke
Relevant: Aaron Swartz - Guerilla Open Access Manifesto

[https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamj...](https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly2008_djvu.txt)
([https://archive.org/details/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto](https://archive.org/details/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto)).

