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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: 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]