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Sci-Hub, a Site With Open and Pirated Scientific Papers
lpress writes: Sci-Hub is a Russian site that seeks to remove barriers to science by providing access to pirated copies of scientific papers. It was established in 2011 by Russian neuroscientist Alexandra Elbakyan, who could not afford papers she needed for her research and it now claims to have links to 48 million pirated and open papers. I tried it out and found some papers and not others, but it provides an alternative for researchers who cannot afford access to paid journals. After visiting this site, one cannot help thinking of the case of Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide as a result of prosecution for his attempt to free scientific literature.
this is the correct one http://www.sci-hub.io/
Yes, publicly funded knowledge should be available to the public free of charge and without restriction. It's the responsibility of universities to share their knowledge and advance science for the public good, unfortunately, they've been hi-jacked by the publishing industry and are now being extorted for access to their own work. It's now got to the point where a substantial chunk of universities' budgets are spent on accessing papers that they funded and their academics wrote.
It boils down to a simple question: Where do want public funds to go? Into the pockets of the academic publishing executives or to stay in university budgets so that they can spend it on things like education and research?