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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.
Just out of curiousity I searched for a (not at all famous) paper I published in the 1990s. Found it on Sci-Hub by just entering a few key words in a search engine - conveniently retrievable.
I remembered that at some point in time, a state-funded institution did officially archive my paper. But it took me about half an hour to finally find it, buried behind multiple retrieval forms and links, with no chance to find it had I not looked up its entire, exact title before.
No question, Sci-Hub did the better job of keeping my little contribution to the world's knowledge available to the public.
Different AC.
I'm in a similar situation, except my university's library doesn't subscribe to all the journals I need, or they have odd restrictions. For example, for some of the major journals in my field, university staff and students can access current and past PDF copies of papers back to around the year 2000 or so. Previously-published papers, even when they're available as PDFs, are not available because it costs more for our university. Thus, I have to go to the paper archives, find the printed journal, find the article, and photocopy it. Insurmountable? Not at all, but why waste 30-60 minutes of my time when I can just copy-paste the DOI into Sci-Hub and get the PDF right away?
Other papers are in conference proceedings and only available in paper form in libraries in foreign countries. Yes, I can (and have) requested interlibrary loans, or have staff in the foreign library find the paper, scan it, and email it to me (my institution pays for this), but why should this even be necessary? Again, DOI in Sci-Hub and I have a PDF. Done. Same result, a hell of a lot less hassle.
Don't even get me started on review articles in huge publications that cost a thousand dollars or something for 1,400 pages of content that you don't want and 6 pages that you do, or journals that keep papers from the 1960s and earlier behind paywalls. Journals that charge you $6 to "rent" a paper for 48 hours (no saving, printing, etc.), $15 to be able to save it, and $30 to be able to print it are complete bullshit.
Gabe Newell of Valve said this about game piracy, and it applies just as well to scientific literature:
In this case, Sci-Hub is far more valuable in that it provides what I want, immediately, and in a convenient form. The fact that it costs nothing is secondary.
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.
In my field (physics and meteorite research), peer reviewers work for free. They're not paid by the journal, though I'd argue that they should be paid at least a reasonable fee for their time and expertise.
And yes, the publication process must be paid for, and that's quite reasonable. Still, the journals charge far more for subscriptions than the cost of typesetting, printing, binding, distribution, and a modest profit.
Personally, I prefer to publish in the journal maintained by the scholarly society relevant to my field rather than the other major journal in the field that's published by Elsevier, even though the latter has a slightly higher impact factor. The society journal is essentially the journal-of-record for the field and their publication costs are quite minimal. They contract with an outside publisher (one of the big publishers, but who's remarkably non-gangster-like in their operations) to actually handle the printing, distribution, and online access, but otherwise maintain control of the content and policies, and strongly push for open access.
The dirty secret of the academic publishing world is that it's a enormous scam designed to funnel taxpayers money into the pockets of rich vendors, who have repeatedly failed to do their jobs because they have no competition and act as a monopolistic racket. Let's not even talk about the kickbacks and benefits they give to the people at these public institutions that are supposed to be upholding the public good but are just looking to inflate their budgets and their ego.
The thing researchers love about sci-hub is that you type in the article name, and you get the article. Imagine that! Something the web search industry figured out 15 years ago has yet to make it into the proprietary morass of vendor locked in library IT systems.... because the academic publishing world is hopelessly corrupt and moribund.
There is no opportunity for a free market force to come in and force these leeches on the taxpayers to do their fucking jobs properly - and their job is to index and store information after it has been verified by peer review. Nothing more, nothing less. It's not complicated. It's not rocket science and it's not brain surgery.
Scihub is the best thing that has ever happened to academic publishing. The management and shareholders of Elsevier and the rest of these thieves should be ashamed of themselves. Ripping off the public for decades on end. It's time to stop.
You couldn't have refuted your own point better in a single sentence. You have the entire chain of cause and effect backwards.
You see, the only reason services like Netfix and Spotify now exist is because of piracy. I remember when people, even at this very site, were scoffing and ridiculing the idea of a cheap streaming service. '10 bucks to listen to millions of songs? Hah, the record companies will never allow it, look at the prices on Itunes! Look at how much a CD costs! They'll never agree to such pricing, if you want streaming anywhere, listen to the radio!" But they had to.
You see, record companies, much like Elsevier, have had to face the fat that the service they originally provided, access to information in a physical format, is pretty much dead and the service that replaced it, access to information in a digital format, does not and cannot be priced in the same way. Consumers are not idiots. If you tell someone to pay them 18 euros for a physical album and then tell them the exactly same content over a digital medium with a fraction of the costs of the physical medium costs nearly the same they're going to know you're lying.
If it was up to record companies and movie studios we'd all still be paying 5 euros a pop for 24 hour rentals and 4 times that for downloads riddled with massive amounts of DRM making cross-device/platform playback near impossible. But the advent of piracy gave the consumers a choice that was both more affordable and more to the point better in quality. They groaned and the grumbled, but eventually they started giving in when they realize this is an existential threat to their existence.
And just in the same way, I hope, Sci-Hub will usher in the era of 'Sciflix' where you can pick the fields you want to follow and get access to ALL articles from those fields at a price that's affordable even to private citizens.
"But the publishers will never allow it. Look at how much journal access costs now! Look at the prices of individual articles! If you want widespread access just use your campus network or library!"
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead