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Who's Downloading Pirated Scientifc Papers? Everyone (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit quotes a report from Science Magazine: In increasing numbers, researchers around the world are turning to Sci-Hub, the controversial website that hosts 50 million pirated papers and counting. Now, with server log data from Alexandra Elbakyan, the neuroscientist who created Sci-Hub in 2011 as a 22-year-old graduate student in Kazakhstan, Science addresses some basic questions: Who are Sci-Hub's users, where are they, and what are they reading? The Sci-Hub data provide the first detailed view of what is becoming the world's de facto open-access research library. Among the revelations that may surprise both fans and foes alike: Sci-Hub users are not limited to the developing world. Some critics of Sci-Hub have complained that many users can access the same papers through their libraries but turn to Sci-Hub instead -- for convenience rather than necessity. The data provide some support for that claim. Over the 6 months leading up to March, Sci-Hub served up 28 million documents, with Iran, China, India, Russia, and the United States the leading requestors.
Of course I give away my papers for free. I'm a scientist. I get zero money for my publications, my review work, my editorial work and anything else related to publications. I've even edited typeset several books for free. All of this for commercial publishing companies who make an insane amount of money with it. The only thing that publishing companies like Springer do is to send the final version to India for the final typesetting in LaTeX and put out the printed versions about one and a half years later. That system is possible because as a scientist I'm paid by the government.
The problem is that I'm not allowed to put the original, quotable paper on my web pages, only earlier drafts. The papers you need for quoting are behind expensive paywalls, and every time someone accesses one of those articles to do his work, somewhere some tax payers are paying for a very expensive subscription. Or, they can pay $39 for a single article themselves - their choice (hahaha). For the publishers, this is like an endless source of money with minimum amount of work. That's why Springer, DeGruyter and small number of other publishers have sucked up and monopolized nearly all of the previously independent journals. It doesn't matter which journal I choose, I always end up with one of the three or four companies - like with record labels.
See the problem now?
"It has economic and scientific value to professional scientists although no value for laypersons."
Who are these laypersons? Is there a certified scientist label that you can get? I have a bachelor in science as one of my degrees is that good enough?
Do I need to stay in academia to be one of those scientists where such papers have values?
Or can I be a person interested in a topic and would like to dig further to expand my own knowledge? Or am I forced to the depth of Wikipedia because I am not a real Scientist?
Science should be more acceptable and it doesn't need to be dumbed down. Normal Scientific journalism confusing a hypothesis and a theory all the time, jumping to conclusions or oversimplifying statements. If a topic is interesting enough, it would be nice for me to dig past all the media hype and look at the real findings.
But because I am not a real Scientist (Having to turn in my Science Card when i got a MBA) I should have to just be dumb to science and just trust those real guys at their words, without me having any understanding.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.