
Sci-Hub, spiritual successor to Aaron Swartz, angering publishers all over again - Thriptic
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/04/a-spiritual-successor-to-aaron-swartz-is-angering-publishers-all-over-again/
======
czr80
So many of these discussions take it for granted that publishers don't do
anything of value. This blog post, by an open access advocate, was for me very
illuminating on what value they actually add
([http://cameronneylon.net/blog/polecon-of-oa-publishing-i-
wha...](http://cameronneylon.net/blog/polecon-of-oa-publishing-i-what-is-it-
publishers-do-anyway/))

Quoting from that link: "One of the big challenges is discussing the costs and
value added in managing peer review is that researchers who engage in this
conversation tend to be amongst the best editors and referees. Professional
publishers on the other hand tend to focus on the (relatively small number of)
contributors, who are, not to put too fine a point on it, awful. Good academic
editors tend to select good referees who do good work, and when they encounter
a bad referee they discount it and move on. Professional staff spend the
majority of their time dealing with editors who have gone AWOL, referees who
are late in responding, or who turn out to be inappropriate either in what
they have written or their conflicts of interest, or increasingly who don’t
even exist! .... Much of the irritation you see from publishers when talking
about why managing peer review is more than “sending a few emails” relates to
this gap in perception. The irony is that the problems are largely invisible
to the broader community because publishers keep them under wraps, hidden away
so that they don’t bother the community."

I'm sure there must be some way to achieve this and also make the content
freely available. But whatever system replaces the current one has to deal
with these issues too.

~~~
return0
> I'm sure there must be some way to achieve this and also make the content
> freely available. But whatever system replaces the current one has to deal
> with these issues too.

Post-publication peer review could solve all of these (and the access issue
too!). I'm still not convinced of the superiority of pre-publication review by
only 3 (usually quite busy) people max.

~~~
KKKKkkkk1
I don't understand. What is the difference between post-publication peer
review and no peer review? What is a journal for if the papers are not peer
reviewed?

~~~
kriro
The simplest workflow I can think of:

1) Publish with no review

2) Open for review

3) If review is passed, tag as reviewed and bundle all those into a special
reviewed section (which can be cited)

4) Reserve the right to remove from reviewed (some later reviewer finds major
flaws etc.)

You'd have to handle the dynamic nature of papers (git-like) but in essence
I'm thinking of a website with "all submitted papers" and a checkbox for
"reviewed papers only". I think that would be valuable and people would likely
leave the checkbox on by default.

I'm also curious if the review has to be blind in this model. I think it would
be more valuable if the reviewers actually signed with their names and the
review feedback was open as well. Shifts the value from being in a prestigious
journal to being successfully reviewed by a smart/reputable person. Ideally
doing these reviews would then become reputation building as well.

------
dang
Sci-Hub has been discussed a great deal on HN:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=sci-
hub&sort=byPopularity&pref...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=sci-
hub&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

There were other major threads that don't come up in that search, e.g.:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11279903](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11279903)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11074638](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11074638)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11070192](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11070192)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10424276](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10424276)

But the current article looks like it adds new information, so we won't treat
it as a dupe.

~~~
chris_wot
You are going to make ColinWright very happy if you show up all the dupes like
this :-)

~~~
dang
It was but a small portion of all the dupes.

~~~
chris_wot
:-) Do you have an internal tool that helps you find dupe stories?

I personally don't mind duplicates because the conversation on most HN
articles is usually very insightful and almost always interesting. In fact, I
often go back to old stories just to read the comments. I'd love to go back to
old duplicate stories just for that reason :-)

------
return0
the parallels to swartz sound like overdramatization. she created the website
for people (like me) who dont have access to all the libraries and dont want
to spend a lifetime searching colleagues with access. there is just too much
science nowadays to justify paywalling it. its a very practical matter for
scientists to be well informed. i am split whether i like this publicity. on
the one hand, it may lead to closing it down, on the other hand it might
finally force the hand of regulators against _the scientists who publish only
behind paywalls_.

To anyone who tries to defend elsevier here on the grounds of capitalist
justice: hold your horses, you are defending a greedy corporation that offers
nothing to science. think about this: the fee for making a paper 'open access'
in , say, cell journals is $5000 per paper, even though elsevier does not pay
the writer, does not write or format the paper, does not edit any images, does
not review the content, does not correct the paper. i.e. you pay $5000 for
hosting one pdf file, possibly 2 (it gets worse, some grants e.g. the erc
grants require open access and high impact factor, hence shelling more money
to elsevier). this is not an issue of copyright, its about an outright crazy
system which forces scientists behind paywalls because funding sources
explicitly require it.

if you think only commercial publishers have the gift of curating good
science, look at elife, an open access journal with reasonable fees, a great
website, and multiple high profile papers already. please dont defend
businesses that are literally potentially harming your health.

~~~
cubano
Defend Elsevier? I think not.

I am currently working with a startup that has to do with prescription drug
refilling. Obviously, interactions between drugs and such can have fatal
consequences if not understood, so we responsibly are providing that
information to our users.

Elsevier provides an API for that data, but wanted to charge around _$40k
/year_ for access. Our business model is of course free to users (we charge
the pharmacies a modest monthly fee)

$40k/yr simply too damn high...so potentially life-and-health saving
information is kept from the people whom need it the most.

Yes we did eventually find a lower cost provider, but as far as shedding tears
for Elsevier?

Hell fucking no.

~~~
ikeboy
Suppose you needed 40k/yr of AWS computing time and couldn't afford it. And
suppose someone hacked into AWS and redistributed it for free.

As far as I can tell, if the argument you made is correct, you should support
the same argument that says the AWS hacker is right.

(To address the two obvious rebuttals, viz 1. Marginal cost and 2. Sci hub is
getting data from those who have a subscription, merely in violation of ToS:

1\. Marginal cost for AWS is likely low, if there's any unused CPU time. 2\.
Change the scenario slightly to someone signing up for a bunch of free AWS
accounts and handing those out. )

~~~
cubano
My "argument", if I was even making one, was that the cost to Elsevier to
provide an API, is a _tiny_ fraction of $40k/yr, and thus their business
practices and model is all about rent-seeking and not about saving peoples
lives, which I personally find disgusting.

~~~
ikeboy
If hypothetically, Amazon was making 80% margins on AWS, would that make them
disgusting?

Edit: note that Elsevier's margins are around 30-40%; I don't know if the
particular API you wanted has higher margins.

~~~
cubano
In general, no, unless of course they were using that margin in a way that
endangered low-income people's health.

I mean really...I can't believe I have to defend this position.

There is _obviously_ certain types of data that should be provided as a public
service to all of society...is this even to be debated?

~~~
whiddershins
This.

It is part of the fabric of scientific research that findings are shared.
Science is overtly collaborative. Every scientists specifically builds on the
knowledge of others, and shares what they discover with the world.

Governments and a variety of organizations fund research with the express
purpose of discovering new knowledge that ultimately benefits everyone.

That's the WHOLE POINT of publishing a paper. At a fundamental level,
scientific publishing is about trying to share the results of your research
with the scientific community.

The funding is tied to the act of publishing, having nothing to do with how
people consume the papers. Charging people above cost to read the published
research is antithetical to the whole idea of how the world does science.

------
tclmeelmo
So what about scientific textbooks? Not undergraduate ones, but the really
narrow topic ones that are used in graduate classes as reference materials for
professionals. They're frequently written by author(s) who are partly to fully
funded on government grants, and they too are very expensive, as some journal
articles are. Are these fair game for distribution on Sci-Hub too?

~~~
j2kun
I don't think anyone who has written such a book has ever made a significant
profit from it. The attitude among researchers in my field, at least, is that
all such books are a labor of love.

With this in mind, it sounds like a perfect use case for sci-hub.

~~~
mSparks
Among the academics I work with there is general disgust with the likes of
Elsevier. Uni pays them to do research. Then has to pay again to Elsevier et
al to use it for teaching.

Swartz created the push for open access (and bad reporting that this ars
article doesn't mention the mass resignations at Elsevier over that issue as
far as I can see)

So this site is only a good thing in my opinion.

~~~
cinquemb
Lingua's Editors & Editorial Board Members: [http://www.aplu.org/news-and-
media/News/aplu-statement-on-re...](http://www.aplu.org/news-and-
media/News/aplu-statement-on-resignation-of-linguas-editors--editorial-board-
members-in-protest-of-elseviers-pricing-policies)

Elsevier response: [https://www.elsevier.com/connect/addressing-the-
resignation-...](https://www.elsevier.com/connect/addressing-the-resignation-
of-the-lingua-editorial-board)

~~~
mSparks
You see. Right there: ... The article publishing charge at Lingua for open
access articles is $1,800 USD. The editors had requested a price of 400 euros,
an APC that is not sustainable.

.. Morons are as good as claiming Wikipedia is not sustainable because they
don't charge editors 1800$ to edit an article...

------
datashovel
Perhaps controversially, I'd say this is one of the biggest problems facing
the world today (ie. inaccessible research papers).

Where is the real money and influence that we need in order to change this?

~~~
wolfgke
> Where is the real money and influence that we need in order to change this?

Civil disobedience

------
jostmey
I typed in a doi to a paper I co-authored, and I was proud to see my work pop
up. So it works.

------
calibraxis
Interesting, time to research Robert K. Merton to understand deeper: _" The
world is broken, and money always wins. [...] I would like to reference Robert
K. Merton, the founder of sociology of science. He studied ethos of research
communities. And what he found is that communism is one of the four important
ethical norms (along with universalism, disinterested, and organized
skepticism) that makes science work. By communism, he meant the common
ownership of scientific discoveries, according to which scientists give up
intellectual property in exchange for recognition. I think that his work is
very relevant to what is happening in science now."_

~~~
calibraxis
BTW, here's Merton's explanation [pdf]:
([http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/students/envs_5110/merton_...](http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/students/envs_5110/merton_sociology_science.pdf))

------
adrianwaj
This is like an mp3 search engine for academic research.

Is there a Soundcloud for academic research? Sounds like a no-brainer idea to
me.. with comments and annotation possible against the actual text. Also,
users could also upload audio (eg podcasts) and video (eg lectures and
presentations).

You could build up really powerful communities as well that could peer-review
on demand (for a fee.)

Quora has shown that experts can gain a following on a single site.

Maybe some type of open-source site for different areas-of-study that is
unified in a single mega-site (like Jobberbase was at one point.)

~~~
thatcat
> comments and annotation possible against the actual text

fermats library does this and allows users to suggest papers for discussion.
Most papers listed are high profile, though community participation seems low,
not the best ux. Highest commented story has 62 comments on 'Ideal Money' by
John Nash. [http://fermatslibrary.com/](http://fermatslibrary.com/)

~~~
adrianwaj
Thanks for link.

I think comments do add value, especially for the author looking for feedback,
moreso than perhaps the reader. Soundcloud has time-based comments on tracks
and also general comments. Both are important. Amazon's book reviews also work
well.

Another important aspect of research is references/bibliography and it would
be great to have an in-text access to a reference. eg a popup that can reveal
the exact quote or piece of text that a paper is referring to. Doing reference
cross-checks is something that can be very tedious but could be great at
locating additional and interesting material for the reader.

Surely this use-case has been addressed in current journal UX..

------
lambdadmitry
I would like to reiterate my points that I've made in a different HN
submission on the topic [1]: Alexandra isn't in any way similar to Aaron
Swartz, she's an opportunistic supporter of an oppressive regime. She is
playing an "activist hero" card now, but in reality she's not even close to an
"activist" in a common Western sense.

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11180762](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11180762)

~~~
return0
I agree that there are no parallels with Swarz, but it's true that
inadvertedly her site has caused more stir and more impact than 15+ years of
pushing for open access publishing. The ad hominem does not change that.

~~~
lambdadmitry
I totally agree with you on serendipity of scihub. However, it's the "Robin
Hood" attitude (it's ad hominem right from the start) that disgusts me, and
the linked article has a lot of it.

------
thaw13579
To play devil's advocate, how is this kind of "civil disobedience" going to
change the system? Why not pursue ways to legally change the system, e.g. new
regulation on academic publishing?

~~~
chris_wot
The deck is stacked against those who want to change the system in such a way.
Those who make massive profits from the existing system will fight tooth and
nail to keep regulations from changing the system, and so any litigant or
lobbyist for open academic publishing will be at a significant disadvantage
from the very start.

Basically, civil disobedience on a grand scale that changes the entire market
for academic publishing is the only real way to effectively change the system
for the better.

Ironic really. If companies like Elsevier had charged reasonable prices for
academic papers from the very start, then this would never have been as big an
impact - certainly it wouldn't have been an existential threat to them.

I for one won't be crying any tears when such companies are rubbed out of
existence.

~~~
thaw13579
The deck is stacked both ways it seems, just look to how Aaron Swartz was
treated...

Another thing to consider is what market forces are at play in academic
publishing. For authors, the currency is prestige and career advancement, and
it's not clear how scihub could change that part of the market.

------
Kenji
I applaud this woman. What she does is brave and constructive. Sci-hub is a
fantastic tool, easy to use and pleasant.

------
sugarfactory
It'd be great if it were implemented as a peer-to-peer protocol as it'd make
taking the service down much more difficult.

EDIT:

Although making the service completely peer-to-peer might be impossible, it is
possible to distribute articles in a peer-to-peer way. I'm considering an
architecture which consists of a peer-to-peer network to share articles, and
servers to download articles and put them on the network. In this
architecture, even if all the servers got taken down at least the articles
which have been shared would be accessible provided that the peer-to-peer
network is alive.

~~~
jsmthrowaway
Sci-Hub and other open access advocacy things are practically the ideal use
case for IPFS. One and done. Whoever implements it, you're welcome for the
idea.

Especially with Internet Archive involvement, IPFS should be quite compelling
these days, even in its infancy.

------
amelius
I hope they can also make this into a common platform for commenting and
asking questions about scientific papers.

Yes, there have been efforts that try to accomplish this, but something like
this only works well if everybody is using it.

Perhaps wishful thinking, but I believe it would be fantastic if every
scientific paper had a "home" on Sci-Hub.

~~~
return0
She already has enough in her hands keeping this up. Someone will have to lend
a hand (her being in russia seems to be deterring some).

P.s. now that you mentioned it, i had started building something like that:
[https://sciboards.com/](https://sciboards.com/)

~~~
amelius
It seems you could be the perfect person to help her out :)

------
fenollp
How about open access but curation is the paid service?

Wouldn't that satisfy the publishers? If they are as good at curation as they
say then they should be very happy

------
amelius
Wouldn't it be much safer for her to put all the content on bittorrent? Or
would there be a lack of seeders?

~~~
bcook
Library Genesis has torrent & edonkey URL's.

Yes, lack of seeders is a problem.

------
voidhorse
While there are plenty of problems with academic publishing, and the notion of
making articles free and easily accessible is one I can certainly support, I
do not see the rending such articles as free as a grand step in the general
increase of knowledge as so many seem to think.

Making the articles available to all is not the same as educating all. You are
only opening the gates to the niche crowd that already has some level of
access to at least some of the articles via institutions. The level of
background competence required to read academic work is what keeps the world
ignorant and ensures the success and increasing erudition of the few. Unless
you can devise a means of not only making academic material accessible but
also eminently readable you are only, in mass archiving papers, preaching to
the choir, so to speak.

You are making it easier for what is already a niche crowd to remain a niche
crowd. Nothing more. Nothing less.

I'm not implying that this is something that shouldn't be done, nor am I
saying it's not commendable to a degree, but I am suggesting the glorification
that's heaped on this sort of thing, "free information from its chains—to give
it to the masses free of charge." and "research Robin Hood" is a little gross
when there are astounding issues with education at the ground level which
prevent masses of people from getting into academic circles in the first
place.

Furthermore, many people see: Big bad useless publisher. while that's true to
some degree, far too many people ignore the complexities involved in
publication proceeders. Sometimes careful and well-considered revision of
existing systems is a better approach than outright anarchy and noble
liberation of information.

When you dismantle one mechanism of publication you must implement another.
The sheer volume of research that is published prevents any completely
unguided system from being that effective. We could go back to old ways,
wherein some journals were edited by an executive editor so to speak, but that
doesn't seem so great either. Peer review has a lot of flaws, but to simply
hope that publication will just work itself out when our current
infrastructures are bypassed is far too naive in my view.

Even with peer review systems, gatekeeping, and money grubbing publishers
academic dishonesty and turning over of papers, snuffing of other's works, and
popularity contests all occur. Do we really expect such problems to disappear
and not get potentially 10x worse in a completely open system? I'm not trying
to advocate anything in particular here; not conservation of current,
admittedly broken practice, nor radical upheaval and dissolution of all
systematic forms of publishing. I am only trying to point out that publishing
is a complex issue that is too frequently under-analyzed and, furthermore, it
is assumed far too frequently that complete and unrestricted access to
information, and complete freedom to publish anything whatsoever sans
constricting publication or review procedure is automatically a good ting.

~~~
chris_wot
This argument doesn't make any sense. How is making publications that costs
lots of money available to everyone "making it easier for what is already a
niche crowd to remain a niche crowd"?

Your issue seems to be that there are problems with teaching people properly,
but that's not making things worse for those who work outside academia - if
anything, it's making it easier!

------
pink_dinner
This is all about violating a license/copyright law. If we were talking about
a large company using GNU/copyleft code and not sharing their changes back to
the community, many people in the community would be demanding the law get
involved (the Thesis Wordpress theme is a great example of this..which caused
anger and outright hatred about 5 years ago in the HN community).

It's really difficult for me to stand behind any community that doesn't put
all licenses on an equal footing. If you want the government to stop going
after you for copyright infringement, you shouldn't be then using those same
tactics to go after people violating the terms of your license.

This girl, Like Aaron Swartz, is nothing but a petty thief. It's pretty easy
to put up a website with stolen papers/content.

The other issue is that it takes millions of dollars to fund the research for
many of these papers. With no incentive to make money on the research,
companies will either stop the research, or it will go completely private and
there will be no access for anyone.

Many of these online revolutionaries really seem to understand how the world
actually works. If you want to change it, start a research company and
actually do the research yourself.

~~~
Thriptic
> The other issue is that it takes millions of dollars to fund the research
> for many of these papers. With no incentive to make money on the research,
> companies will either stop the research, or it will go completely private
> and there will be no access for anyone.

Most of the basic research being published is government funded and is
conducted by universities or other academic entities, not companies. The
publishing companies (Elsevier) aren't conducting any of the research; for the
most part they are simply hosting manuscripts.

