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Science Publishers Try New Tack to Combat Unauthorized Paper Sharing

posted by Fnord666 on Thursday May 11 2017, @06:47PM   
from the I-read-that-somewhere dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

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.

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Original Submission

• Dying industry attempts punishing customers Dying industry attempts punishing customers (Score: 4, Touché) by ikanreed on Thursday May 11 2017, @07:04PM (2 children)

  by ikanreed (3164) on Thursday May 11 2017, @07:04PM (#508249) Journal

  You wish to use the results of your hard work to educate the world? Without the world paying us?

  How dare you?

  Starting Score:	1		point
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• Re:Dying industry attempts punishing customers Re:Dying industry attempts punishing customers (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday May 12 2017, @06:25AM (1 child)

  by maxwell demon (1608) on Friday May 12 2017, @06:25AM (#508513) Journal

  You wish to use the results of your hard work, usually paid for fully or at least in part by the taxpayer, that is the public, to educate the world, that is, those who actually paid for it to begin with? Without the world paying us?

  FTFY

  --
  The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.

  Parent

  • Re:Dying industry attempts punishing customers (Score: 2) by Wootery on Friday May 12 2017, @08:45AM

    by Wootery (2341) on Friday May 12 2017, @08:45AM (#508547)

    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.

    Parent