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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.
At least the summary is realistic about this incident, and refers to it as a suicide.
I'm always astounded when this matter comes up at a place like Hacker News, and they twist it into "the state" or "the prosecutor" somehow being responsible for what Swartz voluntarily to himself, completely on his own. It's like his fanatics are trying to convert a suicide into some weird "murder" where the alleged "murderer" was not involved in any way. The delusion these people suffer from is just absurd.
except looting means taking the and not leaving anything behind. when you take some electronic bits, the original ones remain.
The problem with your straw-man is that MOST of the research referenced is often done on the public dime, then hidden away behind pay walls instead of given to the general public, who as stated, paid for it.
Now wait for someone to argue that open access to scientific papers does not advance the progress of science.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
BS argument. Both manufacturer/IP creator and retailer suffer great financial losses whether physical goods are stolen or IP goods are pirated... it's virtually the same thing. But pirates need BS to justify their harmful actions.
The manufacturing, labor and distribution costs are only a small portion of the final retail price of physical goods. A good chunk of the retail price is based on value of IP of the goods being sold.
Still, when the scientists use journals to communicate with the rest of the world, the contract they agree to is that any reader of their paper may have to pay a hefty fee to access the journal containing their paper.
You are again completely mistaken. Even the paid-for journals have long ago bowed to the inevitable and have a contract clause which allows academics to give away copies of their papers for free, provided it's the preprint formatting.
So you're arguing that pirating and distributing scientific papers has no impact on the bottom line (profit) of the journals?
I'm now arguing that you are arguing dishonestly.
You made comments about hurting the manufacturers and people who generated the IP. I pointed out how completely wrong that was and instead of recanting, you moved the goalposts and accused me of making a completely different argument.
You should admit that your first bunch of claims were completely incorrect.
Hopefully, the journals don't have exclusive rights to the papers that scientists publish.
They don't generally and it's possible to to an end run around that even if they want exclusive rights with a little care before.
Therefore, the scientists are free to publish another copy on the web for free, or a small fee.
A small fee?? Are you off your rocker? It's incredible how you have such very strong opinions on something you clearly know absolutely nothing about!
Only because you weren't charging money for it in the first place.
Er... yes? But it still makes your equating of piracy and theft completely wrong because I've given you a situation where you are demonstrably completely wrong and yet you keep arguing from a position of utter ignorance. It's almost as if youve already decided that piracy==theft is correct and no amount of evidence of situations where piracy has demonstrably different properties from theft is going to dent your attitude in the slightest.
If you were, you'd be screaming bloody murder.
Ah so you've come up with the brilliant tautology that if things were different then they would be different! I like how also without the slightest shred of evidence, you accuse me of being a hypocrite. That's literally ad-hom: you're a hypocrite so your arguments are invalid.
I have noticed that your arguments are full of logical fallacies (I pointed out some of them to you). You might now wish to examine why you have an almost religious fanatic-like adherence to your beliefs in this matter to the point where you resort to logical fallacies to try to prove an unprovable point.
SJW n. One who posts facts.