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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 15 2018, @08:59AM
Perhaps Google should? ... but make profit Google style.
There's already Google Scholar which is a foot in the door. They have the name and reputation, the prestige, so they wouldn't look like those obscure, questionable publishing names. They have the budget and resources. The question is whether this will make money for them? But they're smart and should figure it out. They might even have the incentive of having all that technical data. What use is Google Scholar for them anyway... perhaps that purpose might align with being a free-to-access, free-to-publish publisher themselves. I wouldn't mind advertisements beside a research paper, as badly as a research paper I won't read without paying. This might even allow small high-tech companies to effectively advertise to the right audiences.