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Subscription Journals Are Doomed Because of Sci-Hub's Big Cache of Pirated Papers, Suggests Data Analyst (sciencemag.org)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Science Magazine: There is no doubt that Sci-Hub, the infamous -- and, according to a U.S. court, illegal -- online repository of pirated research papers, is enormously popular. But just how enormous is its repository? That is the question biodata scientist Daniel Himmelstein at the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues recently set out to answer, after an assist from Sci-Hub. Their findings, published in a preprint on the PeerJ journal site on July 20, indicate that Sci-Hub can instantly provide access to more than two-thirds of all scholarly articles, an amount that Himmelstein says is "even higher" than he anticipated. For research papers protected by a paywall, the study found Sci-Hub's reach is greater still, with instant access to 85% of all papers published in subscription journals. For some major publishers, such as Elsevier, more than 97% of their catalog of journal articles is being stored on Sci-Hub's servers -- meaning they can be accessed there for free. In a chat with ScienceInsider, Himmelstein concludes that the results of his study could mark "the beginning of the end" for paywalled research.
The university libraries will still keep paying the subscription fees, and researchers will keep paying for the privilege of surrendering copyright.
Elsevier's business model isn't going anywhere.
Paywalled research is just a bad idea.
Yes, I understand that the peer review and publication process has to be paid for, but restricting access to the fruits of scientific progress -- and therefore also limiting further progress! -- is the wrong way to do it.
My guess is that we'll transition to an "author pays" model. Researchers employed by institutions will have their fees covered by their employer. Researchers who don't have that option are already disadvantaged under the current model, so the fact that they'll still be disadvantaged isn't so terrible. Plus they'll still be able to publish in free online archives that accept non-reviewed and unedited work. Really good work should find it fairly easy to get someone to fund the peer review and editing required to get it into a journal.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
The fact that it costs nothing is secondary.
Gabe was talking about games at the time. In this case, the pricing is so absolutely outrageous - private researchers could easily pay $100 for 24 hour access to a specific paper, and they may have to go through dozens or hundreds of papers to write their own work, even if they aren't even cited - that it's nearly impossible to do research or even simply keep yourself informed without an organization with a much larger budget backing your efforts. So here, it's very much an issue, as is the fact that in most cases the research is paid for by the general public, in part or in full, never mind the fact that copyright law is currently grossly and dangerously distorted in favor of large corporations.
Sci-hub makes it possible for the people who paid for scientific research (the public) to actually access that research without paying a private company that these days does little to nothing to actually earn a fee that's probably well over a thousand times more expensive that it should be.
Netflix actually do something with their money; they fund original content and pay other producers for access to theirs and collaborate with them.
Scientific publishers don't do any of those things; they work entirely by creating artificial scarcity of a product paid for by others that they don't contribute to; at most they rate it.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"