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: 5, Insightful) by eravnrekaree on Tuesday August 14 2018, @02:53PM (2 children)
It sounds like some of the costs of the journals are passed onto the students (via tuition) or to the taxpayer if the universities are public subsidized. Nice.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday August 14 2018, @05:49PM
Considering that journals don't review shit anymore, and even journals with a supposedly "high reputation" simply rubber stamp approve any paper that pays the fee... it is no wonder the journals are simply leeches of public money.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday August 15 2018, @04:59AM
Research is financed by grants and universities take a sizable chunk of it for the "services". That's where money come from. BTW, scientists have no word whatsoever in determining how much they have to "share". However, they are expected to find the grants themselves and may be punished for under-performance.
So, to answer your concerns, the "institutions" screw everybody.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.