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from the on-the-one-hand-information-wants-to-be-expensive…on-the-other-hand,-information-wants-to-be-free dept.
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
Despite two lost legal battles in the US, domain name seizures, and millions of dollars in damage claims, Sci-Hub continues to offer unauthorized access to academic papers. The site's founder says that she would rather operate legally, but copyright gets in the way. Sci-Hub is not the problem she argues, it's a solution, something many academics appear to agree with.
Sci-Hub has often been referred to as "The Pirate Bay of Science," but that description really sells the site short.
While both sites are helping the public to access copyrighted content without permission, Sci-Hub has also become a crucial tool that arguably helps the progress of science.
The site allows researchers to bypass expensive paywalls so they can read articles written by their fellow colleagues. The information in these 'pirated' articles is then used to provide the foundation for future research.
What the site does is illegal, according to the law, but Sci-Hub is praised by thousands of researchers and academics around the world. In particular, those who don't have direct access to the expensive journals but aspire to excel in their academic field.
Source: https://torrentfreak.com/sci-hub-proves-that-piracy-can-be-dangerously-useful-180804/
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 14 2018, @02:42PM (7 children)
In other words, just follow orders.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 14 2018, @06:46PM (6 children)
In other words, the system exists as it is for a reason. And Sci-Hub violates the right to obtain a copy of the information that legally belongs to someone else.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Tuesday August 14 2018, @07:17PM (2 children)
> violates the right to obtain a copy of the information that legally belongs to someone else.
Conversely, if my taxes paid for any portion of the grant, then the paper should be legally free for me to read.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 14 2018, @07:47PM
Any part? If you want to go that route, then it seems that you should only be allowed to read that which is proportionate to the funding.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday August 14 2018, @09:15PM
I guess in the United States that FASTR still hasn't passed yet. I wonder who the roadblocks on that are.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 14 2018, @07:27PM
> In other words, the system exists as it is for a reason.
That reason being, "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
Oh, wait.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @09:22AM (1 child)
OK, trolls gotta eat, so...
The reason being bought and paid for legislation.
No. The text is legally (see above) bound to the publisher, the information is free as in nobody owns it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @10:19PM
Thanks for trying to feed me, but your food isn't nourishing.
Yep. And the laws exist for reasons too. Your disagreeing with them doesn't change that it is the system and there are those who don't get rich off it who nevertheless support it.
Thanks for making the point that SciHub is in fact violating the right of the publisher to determine who gets to make a copy. Facts are free and not copyrightable. (Though ethically there is the matter of plagiarism.) Information is not necessarily free, but it is a common misconception because it is a dream of many. Moot point, anyway, because SciHub isn't simply rewriting articles in a method which just shares the information. They are infringing copyright - that same legally bound text that you noted is not theirs to pass along freely.