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Black Market Database Access To Scholarly Journals
An anonymous reader writes "University libraries offer access to a vast array of valuable materials — if you have a login and password. Now people are buying and selling university credentials online, or giving them away on warez sites. They're used by upstart companies abroad who need access to the latest industrial compounds or other valuable info on databases like SciFinder."
Taxpayer funded research should not be behind pay walls or restricted in any other manner
The largest funding source for biomedical research in the US is the National Institutes of Health (NIH). They recently passed a rule requiring NIH-funded work to be published in an accessible manner. This has had some interesting results, as now journals such as Nature and Science have ways to release articles to the public so that they can be in their high-impact journals and accessible freely.
Of course, this only applies to grants that are approved 2010 and onwards; work funded by older grants does not need to worry about this. However, grants that are were issued originally prior to 2010, and are being renewed, do.
In other words, less federally funded work is published behind paywalls now than ever before.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
So, because you don't feel like heading to the library to make that photocopy, you think you'd be justified in ripping off the digital copy that some company has made available online at its own expense?
So, have you stopped beating your wife yet?
I feel justified in accessing, by any means authorized or not, content that MY GODDAMNED TAX DOLLARS already paid for.
If Elsevier et al don't like those terms, they have every right to see how long they last without any content derived from public funding.
Clearly indicates that a full copy is not going to qualify, and every element must be met for fair use.
No, that's incorrect. The code does not say that all four factors must be met, and that isn't how the courts have interpreted it. The WP article specifically addresses your misconception: "Common misunderstandings: [...] If you're copying an entire work, it's not fair use. While copying an entire work may make it harder to justify the amount and substantiality test, it does not make it impossible that a use is fair use. For instance, in the Betamax case, it was ruled that copying a complete television show for time-shifting purposes is fair use."
Find free books.
As Newton said: "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
Newton was merely quoting when he said this; the original source predates him by 500 years. John of Salisbury first wrote it in 1159. I know it seems pedantic to waste a post on quote attribution, but it's an extremely widespread quotation in nerd circles and not even 1 in 100 people seems to know where it actually came from.
Not to mention that Newton wrote the famous saying in a letter to Robert Hooke, a man with a slight build and severe spinal defect (although these didn't make him especially short), and some authors think it was actually a cutting insult rather than an expression of humility.