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Sci-Hub 'Pirate Bay For Scientists' Sued by American Chemical Society Over Cloned Site (ibtimes.co.uk)
The American Chemistry Society (ACS) is now suing Sci-Hub, the so-called "Pirate Bay for Scientists," over copyright infringement and counterfeiting, and is asking the courts to grant an injunction against the website in the US. From a report: Following the news that academic publisher Elsevier won a legal judgement of $15m in damages against Sci-Hub for allowing people to illegally download peer-reviewed academic papers for free, the world's largest scientific society ACS has filed its own lawsuit in the state of Virginia against the website. ACS is complaining that in addition to making hundreds of thousands of research papers owned by the society freely available, Sci-Hub has also cloned its website and is infringing its trademarks by operating two almost-identical replicas of the ACS website at pubs.acs.org.sci-hub.cc and acs.org.secure.sci-hub.cc.
Go them!
It should be noted that the judgement Elsvier won was a default judgement because SciHub didn't appear... because they aren't a US entity.
We pay our taxes. We want our money's worth. Give us our free science. NOW!
There's the CAS, for example. Here, we have a scientific society that works against the best interests of its members.
"...ACS for their knowledge horde"
I know this wasn't what you meant to say, but that's unwittingly the best way of putting it. The ACS is a knowledge horde, in the same sense as Mongol horde.
I still do not believe what Sci-Hub does is legitimately piracy. Piracy is downloading something you did not pay for. If my tax dollars already paid for the institutional overhead, the scientist's salary, and the grant money, downloading the paper is merely getting what I am owed. Those who monetize science are the real pirates, demanding money for access to that which was created with our tax dollars, charging universities obscene fees for the privilege of allowing their students to read it, and denying scientists and students in poorer countries access to important research.
I've had issues getting papers from the 50's thanks to this outrageous copyright business...the publishers claim to somehow be of benefit to science, and that Sci-Hub harms science, but tell me, how does that benefit science, and how does allowing me or anyone else harm it?
Copyright be damned, suing them is like suing a cop who returns stolen property because it cuts into the thief's profits. I'm a scientist, and I say long live Sci-Hub.
The general consensus was, whether i2p, tor, or another network, this data needs to be mirrored again, but this time it needs to be mirrored outside of a clearnet website, unable to be blocked by domain seizure, ip address blocking, or any other form of traceable legacy platform utilization.
If you agree, pick a network and start doing your part to mirror content today. Between the limited size of the networks, Windows 10 telemetry, and TrustZone/Management Engine proto-backdoors, who knows how long we will have, but now is the time to make a stand if you believe in freedom of information, limited life of copyright, and the need for society to collectively advance outside of the bounds of greed of the 'chosen few'.
Rebel today, or the freedom to rebel tomorrow will be taken from you!
Peer review is useful to filter out some bogus and low quality work. Although some bogus research does get through peer review, it is still worthwhile. There are plenty of predatory open access journals that take liberties with the peer review process if they even do it at all. Requiring papers to be open access won't actually fix things, either. Elsevier and other publishers will just create a really high fee tacked onto the page charges to make a publication open access. Unless the government places hard limits on how much of its grant money can be spent per publication and require that all publications billed to the grants be open access, this will continue.
How many researchers are going to drop ACS membership because of this?
Peer review is not really all that useful, to check quality by that process one would have to check quality of the reviewers. The journal however... if you are published in a big name journal that's an indicator and if you choose to publish in no-name journal that is also an indicator of sorts.
A lot of journals allow self-archiving, sometimes of published, sometimes of 'author's last' version. It's an underused mechanism.
Until then...As for Sci Hub...it's a response to the idiocies of the current system and the amazing costs of the established journals, and it is right that more publicly funded research gets to more people. It is a blunt instrument, though, with drawbacks:
(1) Not all the research is taxpayer funded. This is a crude instrument. Even if you accept the 'taxpayer funded' argument as a basis for considering this behaviour ethical, if they put out anything that was privately funded, that is still ethically theft.
(2) The 'it's taxpayer funded' argument is nice, but at least logically, the conclusion is that US taxpayer funded research should be available to US taxpayers, UK to UK taxpayers, etc. The argument is really not logically valid as it stands. You still need to invoke altruism (US funds it and gives to the world). Science needs to be globally available, not just to the country where it was done.
(3) Giving away other people's stuff is all well and good until you run out of other people's work to publish. Elsevier and and those, yes, they make a lot of money where they really shouldn't. But these papers _are_ peer reviewed through the Elsevier mechanism. So Elsevier _do_ add some value over and above what the scientists and taxpayers provide. Not as much as they charge for it via subscriptions, but some. So until Sci Hub are paying for some of the cost of managing the peer review they _are_ thieves.
(4) Pragmatism does not make it right. Desirable does not make it right. 'Cos I want it' does not make it right. 'Cos I like free stuff' does not make it right. Just makes it pragmatic and desirable. Buying goods you know to be stolen is still dodgy.
The journal however... if you are published in a big name journal that's an indicator
Yes, and if that name is Elsevier then you have proven that you support fraud and don't give a shit about the scientific process.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
ACS's financials require continued growth of its revenues. Its billion plus endowment and its half a billion in annual revenues are not growing as fast as its gold-standard retirement plan costs. It is experiencing 2% a year membership decline. It is facing bankruptcy in 20 to 30 years and is institutionally incapable of adapting to having a smaller role in publishing. It is way easier for their executives to file an ineffective lawsuit than it is for them to map out a future for themselves where publishing revenues are a fraction of today's revenues. It has a lot in common with cities that have too many pensioners and shrinking populations.
Thanks American Chemistry Society. I had no idea, until your lawsuit pointed it out, that these sites existed. Time to start browsing through publicly funded research!
Warning! Keep Out of Eyes! Wash Out with Water! Don't Drink Soap! Dilute! Dilute!
We need to organize a massive boycott of the ACS, and see chemists and others all across academia cancelling their memberships over this. If this disgusting organization isn't going to support science and scientists, they then can all go fuck themselves.
Go to Reddit, if you want heavy moderation. You obviously don't understand the culture here, and would be better served elsewhere. It is okay, the culture here isn't for everyone. It is not inclusive. It is not a safe space. It is not heavily moderated, even for off-topic posts.
If it were those things, most of us would leave. If you want it to be those things, you should leave. That's not pejorative, it is just factual. You will be happier elsewhere.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."