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Ross Mounce knows that when he shares his research papers online, he may be doing something illegal — if he uploads the final version of a paper that has appeared in a subscription-based journal. Publishers who own copyright on such papers frown on their unauthorized appearance online. Yet when Mounce has uploaded his paywalled articles to ResearchGate, a scholarly social network likened to Facebook for scientists, publishers haven't asked him to take them down. "I'm aware that I might be breaching copyright," says Mounce, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Cambridge, UK. "But I don't really care."
Mounce isn't alone in his insouciance. The unauthorized sharing of copyrighted research papers is on the rise, say analysts who track the publishing industry. Faced with this problem, science publishers seem to be changing tack in their approach to researchers who breach copyright. Instead of demanding that scientists or network operators take their papers down, some publishers are clubbing together to create systems for legal sharing of articles — called fair sharing — which could also help them to track the extent to which scientists share paywalled articles online.
Sharing information is antithetical to scientific progress.
(Score: 3, Touché) by melikamp on Thursday May 11 2017, @07:01PM (10 children)
FTFY
And those people who "publish" their "research" behind paywalls, they don't deserve to be cited; and those stupid enough to give away their copyright to the predatory publishing industry, they fully deserve to be shafted by that industry for the rest of their lives and their children's lives, just as the modern copyright law stipulates. OK, I didn't mean that, but I am rolling my eyes very time they come out whining about their plight.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday May 11 2017, @07:21PM (7 children)
What's puzzling to me is that the journals are not footing the bill for the research...
Someone pays a researcher (university, foundation, government, company...) to study something and provide results which they are interested in. But the "science publishers" get to decide who gets access to those peer-reviewed results, and claim copyright...
Since we invented that Internet thingy, why don't the people paying publish the results of the studies they spend their millions on, and give the finger to the greedy intermediates?
(Score: 2) by melikamp on Thursday May 11 2017, @07:43PM (5 children)
I criticize scientists harshly for their publishing habits, but in a way they got catch 22 going, so it's not all their fault they keep going back to feed the sharks. The prestigious (and slimy) journals such as Nature are still the surest way to build your resume as a research scientist, so a talented researcher with enough moral sense to publish only free research is risking undeserved obscurity and lousy job prospects. There's clearly zero need in the intermediary such as Nature in the modern world, but they will keep riding the brand name train for as long as they can, and leverage the copyright in the most predatory ways. I don't think there's a way to fix that now, we will just have to wait for them to die from old age, so to speak.
I hope we will see the peer-review restructured in the next 20 years or so, as the new generation of scientists will likely ignore the dinosaurs of publishing, and use a fair, equitable, and minimal-overhead process for vetting & preparing publications, which will then be dumped online, free in every sense of the word.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday May 11 2017, @07:56PM (1 child)
Some billionaire's foundation should just set up a free website and pay for reviews. Once they hit a critical mass of people who don't have the patience to wait for a Nature/Science rejection, plus those who pay minor eyebrow-raising publishers, they'd become the reference, wikipedia-style (with legitimately powerful editors).
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @08:36PM
Peer review of scholarly papers is pretty much always volunteer work, to avoid potential conflicts of interest. It doesn't take a billionaire to do this.
The problems with access to scientific journals persist because of several factors: "publish or perish", the prestige associated with certain journals, and the fact that people associated with universities usually don't encounter any problems accessing journal articles (universities typically have unrestricted access), so may not even be aware of the issue.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @08:26PM
undeserved obscurity
Either you seek fame or you deserve obscurity. There's no third option.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @08:55PM
the surest way to build your resume as a research scientist
Don't forget that it is also important for all the other authors as well.
Even established professors still have to consider the careers of their students, post-docs, and collaborators.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Friday May 12 2017, @04:24PM
In the same way that it is worthwhile studying at a top institution, it is worthwhile to publish in a top journal.
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Friday May 12 2017, @08:39AM
Don't worry, you're not the only one who's realised that the current situation is insane. The movement to fix this mess is called open access. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday May 12 2017, @05:30AM
There's more than just one:
Sharing information is antithetical to scientific progress.
should have been "Sharing information is required for scientific progress".
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 12 2017, @05:08PM
The "Scientific Method" involving sharing of research results has been a going concern for 1000+ years, though it really only got going strong in the last 200 or so. All of that time, up until the last 20, scientific publications were providing a valuable service, and actually increasing the distribution of knowledge rather than hindering it. Their "review editorial purview" may be questionable at times, but it was part and parcel of the system up through the 1990s.
Now, of course, this 1000 year old snake is slow in turning with the times, and the overhead of review, publication, distribution, etc. has been disrupted. The journals could continue to provide their valuable services by providing an online index of articles which they have reviewed and accepted, the problem is that this costs more than people are willing to pay for anymore. Used to be, people accepted the cost of paper as being higher than it really is and relished the added value. Now, the cost of that added value must be exposed and traditional payment channels balk at the idea of paying for it when they don't have to in order to receive the end product. Extend this to world markets where scientists don't have large amounts of western currency at their disposal and the situation becomes even thornier.
Who pays for the peer review process in the future? Who is the administrator of the web of trust that ultimately sorts out the good papers from the less valuable? Which authors will be willing to serve as peer reviewers when it is no longer necessary for them to get their own papers elevated standing when being considered for publication?
Many solutions are possible, but I think it may take another 30 to 100 years for the system to settle out to a "good" process that isn't bought and paid for by commercial interests.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Touché) by ikanreed on Thursday May 11 2017, @07:04PM (2 children)
You wish to use the results of your hard work to educate the world? Without the world paying us?
How dare you?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday May 12 2017, @06:25AM (1 child)
FTFY
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Friday May 12 2017, @08:45AM
Agree. Paywalling work isn't always unreasonable, but it's outrageous when it's done to a body of work produced with public funds.
Suppose Alice pays Bob to build her, say, a chair. Suppose Bob comes back telling her All done. By the way I handed it over to Eve. If you want it, just go buy it off her. We'd expect Alice to take Bob to court, and win. But this is exactly what happens in academia, and it's considered the norm.
(Score: 5, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Thursday May 11 2017, @07:33PM (8 children)
Sign over my copyright to get published, and take the sting out of the unfairness of their demands by ignoring their restrictions.
Academic publishers can die in a fire. They're total rent seeking, thieving parasitic scum. Remember Aaron Swartz!
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Thursday May 11 2017, @08:49PM (7 children)
Is being published the only consideration scientists get from publishers? It seems like they would have to exchange something of value for the copyright to the paper, and, as noted elsewhere in the comments, merely being published isn't of much intrinsic value, what with the internet, and all.
I could see a case being made for the value being inherent in the prestige of the journal publishing the work, some of which presumably rubs off on the authors. But that is a pretty shaky foundation on which to build even a pyramid scheme.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Thursday May 11 2017, @11:26PM
Is being published the only consideration scientists get from publishers?
Yes - if they need to publish in the recognised journal that the bean counters* want.
*Many insults can be terms of endearment; this is not one of them.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Thursday May 11 2017, @11:44PM (4 children)
You got it, that's all researchers get. They get to say that the reviewers who did the review for Prestigious Journal, for free, thought their paper was good enough for the journal. If the journal persuades some sucker to pay their exorbitant fee ($30 is a common amount) for a copy of one paper, the authors will receive precisely zero of that.
The academic publisher doesn't pay for research, doesn't pay authors or reviewers, and doesn't reimburse the public for the expenses we incurred paying for the research. About all they do is pay for the printing of a few dead tree editions, which is looking less and less competitive with digital copies as the years roll by.
Of late, the academic publishers have been trying an "author pays" model. The authors can pay the journal $500 to $5000 to not put their work behind a paywall. Con artists know a good thing when they see it, and that is gold. They created a whole bunch of new journals with the author pays model, to entice academics' employers to part with those fees. I take con artists finding this a lucrative con worth trying as another sign that publishers ask too much.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday May 12 2017, @02:31AM (3 children)
The whole thing fucks up science, any real review of science, and discussion of science by the layman. Just one more piece of evidence that we are ruled by toxic MBAs and the bullshit antics of the Owning Class. They need to find every place in our world that they can fuck up, and fill with the "benefits" of their avarice.
Anyways, ever notice around here how we don't discuss the papers themselves? I sure as hell notice how some of us can seem like they *really* know what they are talking about, and could actually do some fucking peer review and "publish" their insightful commentary as posts *here*. This site has a relatively small membership, but my intuition says it could hold its own at Mensa parties. I've seen people go back and forth here for a post or two, till a third one that happens to be a polymath explains how they are both wrong :) There is intellectual ability around here.
Yet, what I see so many, many, times around here is "article pay walled". In many cases it was research paid for with tax dollars, but we can't fucking see it, can't fucking talk about it, and sure as hell can't use it to possibly educate ourselves a little. Instead we wax poetic about the possibilities, or cynically gripe about its inevitable misuse. Rarely do we speak of specifics that you find beyond the abstract.
How can I trust science when they admit that have problems, write papers about the problems they are having, and then hide it all behind paywalls so that ordinary people can't review it? There is a huge transparency problem in this world, and the hilarious moments when there isn't just erode our trust in the institutions that must operate with it.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday May 12 2017, @03:56AM (2 children)
I'm about ready to submit a research paper which may have broad interest and will not require deep technical knowledge of some arcane subject to understand. I am thinking about really spreading it around. Put a preprint on Arxiv, put it on my personal website, and even see if I can do it up as a story for submission here. The journal may of course reject it, and it could even be possible it's not rejected on its lack of technical merit, but because journals are jealous, hate people submitting papers to more than one journal at a time, and may decide putting it on arxiv counts as doing that. We shall see.
Thing is, in the world of "publish or perish", I am very, very perished. This will be my first attempt at publishing any research in 15 years.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 12 2017, @05:24PM
My first job put me "near" academic authors, I helped them with some aspects of their papers, and I was named author (3rd or 4th place) on a few. As the years went by we started working with some pretty intense post-docs doing cutting edge stuff and I started actually authoring word-for-word the pieces of the papers that involved the equipment we developed and provided for the work. I _assumed_ that since I was reviewing final drafts and seeing 10-20% of the content in the paper being submitted as-written word for word by me that I would at least be named somewhere on the byline for these dozen or so publications. But, alas, the academics "needed" the authorship more than me, so they got the author slots and I just got paid. Paid 3x as much per year as those high power post-docs, so I'm not complaining, but it's interesting how the world works like that.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday May 12 2017, @09:13PM
Good luck :)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 12 2017, @05:15PM
Academia has placed "publication" on a high pedestal, just having your name on a paper elevates your standing within the community leading to better jobs with better pay and benefits. This is your "payment" in exchange for the legal copyright, or at least it was up until the turn of the millennium.
Personally, I think the whole of academia is just as corrupt, inbred, power hungry, rent seeking, and detestable as the little portion that is the academic publication industry.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @07:37PM (7 children)
Let the scientists do the science. Meanwhile, the publishers should be hacked into submission and everything leaked.
Open access publishers with endowments could handle the costs of publishing and peer review.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by melikamp on Thursday May 11 2017, @08:13PM (6 children)
The tax payers are already paying for fundamental research, as many people think they should. Peer review is an crucial part of that research, and should be fully funded from the same source. If corporations want to pitch in, they are welcome to, but we should not depend on them for anything important. It is a travesty that reviewers today work essentially gratis on a task which is an integral part of the progress of science.
The peer review process is broken silly even beyond it being a hostage to the slimy publishing houses. As it stands, we can't even be sure much of anything is being reviewed at all. The review process may begin and conclude behind closed doors, blind or not, but it is clear as day we should be gaining access to the complete review record upon either acceptance or refusal. Who reviewed, what comments they made, how those comments were addressed, the whole shebang. That way researchers who disagree with the peer review outcome can self-publish the complete record, which will become a huge motivating factor for the judges to do a decent job (for which they will be paid regardless of the outcome). So with rejections, at least the author should get the option of sharing the full record, whereas accepted articles should not even be seen without a review record attached.
Bad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholarly_peer_review#Anonymous_and_attributed [wikipedia.org]
Better: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholarly_peer_review#Open_peer_review [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday May 11 2017, @08:54PM (5 children)
While I completely understand the impetus behind your ideas (and agree with a lot of the principles), I'm not sure completely "open" peer review is the best idea. The way we know peer review is done and that it is done well is by trusting editors at reputable journals. Everyone in most fields knows which journals are the ones that actually practice rigorous review, which ones are a little "easier," and which ones will basically publish anything they receive even if they claim to be "peer reviewed." The latter case isn't really much better for your scholarly reputation than just posting an article on your own blog. Yes, there are failures of peer review, but less so at top journals. And good editors at top journals who don't receive sufficient or clear comments on the merits will generally reach out to more reviewers.
I agree that the system is a bit crazy by depending on reviewers to work for free.
But here's a few issues that arise with completely "open" peer review:
(1) Reviewers are more likely to vote to accept articles. Several studies have shown this. It's kind of like writing a book review of a famous scholar in your field: unless you're an equally famous scholar, you're not likely to really "take them to task" publicly and write something that maybe points out some minor issues but doesn't torpedo their whole argument (even if you don't buy it).
(2) This is a particular issue the smaller the subspecialty. Other studies on open review show that larger numbers of reviewers will simply decline to review. It'd be interesting to note at what stage such reviewers decline to do it. Nowadays peer reviewers can pretty much drop out at any stage of the process, since it's voluntary. If reviewers can drop out once they see an article, it might be because they figure out who the author might be and don't want to write something against them. Or because they realize the paper is bad, but don't want to risk public criticism of a colleague/peer. And then you end up making "publication bias" (which is already a problem) worse because editors end up "shopping around" until they find a reviewer who actually agrees to do it... and is probably more likely to make positive comments. Either that, or you end up with editors having to draw on more reviewers outside the immediate subspecialty who will be more willing to "ruffle feathers" of people they don't know as well -- but that risks worse review quality, since then you're dealing with people who aren't experts on that subspeciality.
These are not just theoretical concerns. I saw something very much like it happen in an electronic journal that started in a field I'm familiar with about a decade ago. They didn't exactly practice "open review," but they would have reviewers or members of the editorial board publish a public "commentary" on the article along with the publication itself. The idea in theory was to do something like what you're asking for: to have an expert respond publicly and point out some issues with the article (both strengths and weaknesses).
What actually happened in practice is that all the "comments" were pretty much positive and rarely engaged very deeply or critically, because it was a new journal in a sort of emerging field, so they packed the editorial board with people who were eager to get more research out in this area anyway. The quality of the journal was pretty poor, even when it received contributions from established scholars.
Over the years, it's gotten better, but the public comments have morphed into something different -- they're more about scholars trying to publish their own ideas while vaguely "attaching" them to the other "main" articles. There's still relatively little serious criticism.
So, while in theory I'm in favor of many of your ideas, I'm not sure it can actually work everywhere. And it likely will prevent some abuses of the current system and reveal crappy journals to be clearly the crappy things everyone in a field knows them already to be. But for the serious, rigorous journals, I worry it will prevent many reviewers from being open and honest -- or worse, even cause a lot of experts to summarily refuse to do reviews, particularly early in their careers or against someone or in an area where they don't want to risk insulting anyone. Sometimes anonymous review is actually helpful -- particularly when you're reviewing a truly awful paper and need to frank.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday May 11 2017, @09:13PM (1 child)
The way we know peer review is done and that it is done well is by trusting editors at reputable journals.
Yes, trusted people respected by their peers in the field, not some bloodthirsty, money-grubbing corporation! Why do you think this would change with open access?
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday May 12 2017, @01:21AM
I don't think editorial ethics would change; I merely included that statement to reply to the previous post's assertion that we don't know if peer review is done well or at all. Good journals already do it well.
The rest of my post is about a few potential negative effects of open peer review. Having been on both sides of peer review, I think many people would be less frank and critical if they knew comments would be later posted publicly under their name. But the parent is right -- it would likely also encourage reviewers to take work seriously. The net effect would probably be to improve bad journals and make it somewhat easier to get accepted to good ones. But it could also get more mediocre research published if people are less critical.
(Score: 2) by melikamp on Thursday May 11 2017, @09:45PM
I am not actually advocating "open review" as described on the wiki, but I do think it's better than a traditional model where we know nothing at all. I actually agree with your points, especially (1), and do believe that making reviews blind may help to reduce the "nice guy" bias. But once the process is done, and the study is accepted, all records must be unsealed and attached to the online publication. And if the study was rejected, all records must be unsealed and handed over to the authors, to use as they please.
And another thing, all that bias and attrition are indeed very real and nasty, but we don't really know whether they will persist if universities force the faculty to do the review duty at their standard rate. I am trying to imagine myself in their shoes: peer review is written into my job description, I get paid no matter what, I am only one person on a panel of 3 or 4, and my only real concern is that my peers will at some point go over the unsealed review record and see that I personally didn't do anything of value. I think I would just try to be fair and do a decent job, but that's just me :)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bradley13 on Friday May 12 2017, @06:25AM (1 child)
I agree with essentially all of your points. When I was a grad student, and later a post-doc, part of my duties involved reviewing papers in our group's area of research (under the auspices of my supervisor). I certainly wrote some critical comments, and I remember one particular research group whose ideas I found just totally useless. It was, however, quite a famous research group. If my comments on their papers had been published under my name, I would have hesitated to criticize them, because doing so would surely have hurt me more than them.
tl;dr: It's important for the editor to know who made certain comments, but those comments need to be passed on anonymously.
The other puzzle piece missing is replication. Replication works needs to be honored. Imagine a journal that publishes papers, and includes links to the replication studies: A paper with 0 replications could be looked at askance. A paper with 2-3 replications would be viewed as solid. A paper with 2-3 failed replication attempts would be seen for what it is.
Who wants to do replication? Me. In my current position, I teach far too much to have time for cutting-edge research. But following someone else's recipe? What a great source for student projects - which we always need - and a great way for me to at least stay in shouting distance of the cutting edge. Unfortunately, the culture just isn't there: replication won't get any funding, and serious journals aren't interesting in publishing replication reports. So we muddle along...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @04:47AM
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/02/if-you-fail-reproduce-another-scientist-s-results-journal-wants-know [sciencemag.org]
https://jnrbm.biomedcentral.com/ [biomedcentral.com]
http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00523/full [frontiersin.org]
https://blog.frontiersin.org/2017/05/01/are-replication-studies-unwelcome/ [frontiersin.org]
http://www.nature.com/news/go-forth-and-replicate-1.20473 [nature.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @07:56PM (1 child)
"We are going to give iTunes customers a choice—the current versions of our papers for the same 99 cent price, or new DRM-free versions of the same papers with even higher quality and the security of interoperability for just 30 cents more,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @10:25PM
A DRMed journal wouldn't be worth the paper it couldn't be printed on.
(Score: 4, Informative) by requerdanos on Thursday May 11 2017, @09:29PM (10 children)
Attacking a ship is wrong. Helping your neighbor is admirable. There's nothing in common between sharing and piracy, and that propaganda campaign does not deserve our support.
Hear, hear.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @10:17PM (7 children)
What if your neighbor is attacking a ship? Would it be wrong to help them?
Both sharing and piracy share ari, so they have 46% of themselves in common.
Your disinformation campaign does not deserve our support.
(Score: 3, Touché) by requerdanos on Thursday May 11 2017, @10:56PM (2 children)
Both sharing and piracy share ari
Wow. Noted. It's comments like this that should give everyone hope for mankind.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday May 12 2017, @06:36AM (1 child)
I know you were being sarcastic, but actually comments like that do help. Because while the claim itself is clearly silly, it draws from a meme (which is exactly what makes it funny to begin with), and therefore causes your mind to, metaphorically speaking, put that meme into the criticism arena. And by being funny and obviously silly, it can pass the barrier for some people who already are immunized against rational arguments. And no, reading it will not immediately change your mind. But it still has a small effect, and constant dripping wears the stone.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday May 12 2017, @12:10PM
I know you were being sarcastic, but actually comments like that do help.
Well, maybe 25% sarcastic, but mostly serious. It does highlight exactly what sharing and piracy do have in common, in an unexpected way... and it isn't much.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Thursday May 11 2017, @11:29PM (1 child)
What if your neighbor is attacking a ship? Would it be wrong to help them?
Depends on the ship - is it one that habitually attacks your neighbour's ships without provocation?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday May 12 2017, @12:12PM
habitually attacks your neighbour's ships without provocation?
To be fair, there is a certain type of ship [nytimes.com] known to do that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 11 2017, @11:30PM (1 child)
sh(((ari)))ng
p(((ira)))cy
Coincidence detected.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday May 12 2017, @06:51AM
by Anonymous Co(((war)))d. Coincidence detected. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday May 12 2017, @03:02AM (1 child)
I like the whole moral superiority of it and all, but you can't simplify like that.
Often times whether or not it is sharing or "piracy" is determined by rather corrupt people, institutions, and processes. YouTube can kiss my fucking ass. They say "piracy", I say their algorithms are fucking retarded pants-on-head stupid. What's worse is that I possessed a license *CORRECT* for putting it on YouTube which was more expensive. Yet, there is no way to deal with those shit spackled muppet farts because the DMCA wildly leans towards protecting right holders while inhibiting free speech, free expression, and fair use. You can be labeled a dirty pirate and have almost no viable recourse against it.
Many times to the distinction comes down to interpretations that are controversial and involve fair use. In some cases just flat out civil disobedience because the copyrights are annexed by barbarians that figure might-makes-right and ownership-is-nine-tenths-of-the-law are blunt instruments to beat dissent to death with.
Some if it is very much deserving of support, and still considered "piracy" by those in power. What about "sharing" government data, that they've no moral, legal, or ethical right to control? Much less pursue people in court for?
"Piracy" is only an abstract concept in the first place when speaking of information. It only exists because we came together, in order to further the interests of the Public Domain, to encourage works by providing temporary, exclusive, and *limited* control. There was NEVER any agreement on a large scale that information ownership was being pushed as actually real and morally secure in its foundations. When promulgated, it is reviled and the intellectual and spiritual backlash intense as it is immediate.
So some people say "Piracy", I still say sharing. By sharing, I mean that I don't fucking recognize your imaginary property rights to some fucking information. In the end, we ourselves, may just be information in the universe. I'm sure as hell not owned by anything, or anyone except the chocolate manufacturers.
I believe in creating an environment that serves the Public Domain above else, and that also means to me that we need to reward the artists and creators (not owners) of the works being added. It does not mean I subject myself to the corruption, abuses, overreach, and especially the lack of options to reward the creators because some owners decided to cartel the shit out of it while manipulating creators. If they make it too difficult, or too invasive, or requires me to give up my rights in return, then I'm just going to pirate. Fuck them.
Those that are reasonable get rewarded. Those that are avaricious parasitic scum do not. My entertainment is not free, but my wallet does speak freely. I appreciate your moral and ethical position, but it's not that simple and I only give financial rewards that go to the creators themselves. For example, pirate the shit out of a band's music, but then also make sure you go the concerts at least once and buy a t-shirt or glow in the dark cock ring.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday May 12 2017, @06:45AM
Sure, the reality is always more complicated. But if one side makes oversimplifying statements ("copying is stealing", "sharing is piracy"), and the other side only makes solid, but complicated statements ("in many cases, the restriction of the right to copy a published work by the author or, worse, a company who bought the rights from the author, to the extent common today, is harmful to society, and when considering the overall effect, that harm does more than compensate for the advantages that come from the fact that those restrictions allow some authors to easily make an income from their works"), which side do you think will win the fight for mindshare? Indeed, I guess for the latter statement, 99% of all people will have no idea what it actually said after hearing it to the end. If they even had the patience to listen that long.
Sometimes oversimplified statements are necessary to get a point across.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday May 12 2017, @12:22PM
These science publishers are stealing the investment from taxpayers and the interest of citizens to take part of what they gave up resources to the researchers to conduct their business. So if they want to continue the hijacking of public resources they can pay for the research they hijack and the funds for research that didn't turn out so well because that also got to be funded as will often not know who makes the smash hit publication.
It's all part of the socialize costs and privatize profits. While screwing citizens in general by foremostly denying them knowledge to change their lifes payed by them giving up resources for.. maybe nothing anymore.
I recognize this "fair sharing" . It's the same MAFIAA code word(s) used before to screw people and do a Orwellian new speak gaslighting on the public.
Free science: https://s.c#i[-(h!u%b¤.+a._c
(remove everything but alphanumeric and . : / - to get the address)