Dr. Pirate PHD

[crimson5pheonix]

http://www.sciencealert.com/this-woman-has-illegally-uploaded-millions-of-journal-articles-in-an-attempt-to-open-up-science

A Russian researcher has opened and maintained a piracy website for research papers of all things. Of course, publishers are trying to get it shut down for obvious reasons and charge stupidly high fees for every paper shared this way. She points out that it's only the publishers losing money, not the original researchers.

I find this hilarious and I see her point of view. The publishers are basically parasites and the paywalls make learning far more difficult than it needs to be. Personally I hope things go well for her.

 

[Zontar]

What to publishers even do anyway? It seems that expenses shouldn't be high enough to require the 35$ to access a paper.

And if these are the same publishers who make the books I'm required to buy for classes I feel no sympathy for people charging me 200$ for books that have the same knowledge the one from the past 20 years have on 10$ worth of paper and ink. I feel sorry for people in the States who have to pay full price for their higher education.

 

[runic knight]

An alternative solution. Have all sites publishing the research papers be entirely free and rely on advertisements for income. I know the paywall has been an issue I ran across more than a few times finding sources in college, and that is from a field that doesn't do a lot of research papers or requires as up to date research papers for relevance. I fully agree the publishers seem like parasites in this case.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

I don't get why you would have to pay for a research paper.

Is this a US only thing?

Because it sounds stupid.

 

[Zombie_Fish]

An alternative solution. Have all sites publishing the research papers be entirely free and rely on advertisements for income. I know the paywall has been an issue I ran across more than a few times finding sources in college, and that is from a field that doesn't do a lot of research papers or requires as up to date research papers for relevance. I fully agree the publishers seem like parasites in this case.

Hell, who needs ads? arXiv has been up for 25 years relying purely on donations from research institutions[footnote]https://confluence.cornell.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=241664021[/footnote].

What to publishers even do anyway? It seems that expenses shouldn't be high enough to require the 35$ to access a paper.

Having your paper accepted into a really famous journal is like having a really famous professor as co-author on your paper; it makes your work more prestigious. The best-known journals out there have really high standards for papers, so people think of the research in those papers as of a higher quality. Getting published in a top journal thus leads to more people reading your work, more citations and you becoming a bigger name in the field.

That model is kind of dying now, thanks to more and more major papers being published on open-access e-prints such as arXiv and IACR, but publishers are making it clear that they won't go down without a fight.

I don't get why you would have to pay for a research paper.

Is this a US only thing?

Because it sounds stupid.

Nope, it's a global thing. Though a lot of the largest publishers are US-based.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

Ok, that's interesting.

If you're part of an institution, you probably get it all free anyway through their subscriptions, but if you're not, then the price is ludicrous to DL a single article. So lets just say my sympathy for said publishers is incredibly low.

 

[DefunctTheory]

What to publishers even do anyway? It seems that expenses shouldn't be high enough to require the 35$ to access a paper.

Science (And medical, come to think of it) journal publishers' only 'job' in the age of the internet is to cut out the chaff of bunk science, and as a 'prestige' generator.

Whether that is worth a 30+ dollar fee largely depends on how mentally handicapped you may be.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Ok, that's interesting.

If you're part of an institution, you probably get it all free anyway through their subscriptions, but if you're not, then the price is ludicrous to DL a single article. So lets just say my sympathy for said publishers is incredibly low.

As the article points out, it's becoming difficult for the universities to pay for subscriptions too.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

As the article points out, it's becoming difficult for the universities to pay for subscriptions too.

Yes, I read that, thanks.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Ok, that's interesting.

If you're part of an institution, you probably get it all free anyway through their subscriptions, but if you're not, then the price is ludicrous to DL a single article. So lets just say my sympathy for said publishers is incredibly low.

Even then you can't necessarily get the papers you need. Especially if its from an obscure source. On several occasions during my nine years of studying I had to submit a request form to the library for them to formally attempt to get a copy of some papers from another University or major library. I went so far as to get in touch with a university library in another city to see if they could furnish me with one particular paper. Its an absolute nightmare.

Honestly I feel slightly bad.

I mean I have major respect for the professor doing this. It's a great thing.

The reason I feel bad is even in my time we had ways and means for getting round paywalls. Not all institutions are subscribed to all journals so you'd often run into one or two you didn't have access too but had papers you needed.

If you needed the paper we generally used google scholar and clicked on show all versions. Often there was a hidden free version the institutes themselves had snuck out you could get. If not and you were desperate you emailed the researcher who published the paper and they'd often be able to send over a copy of the paper you needed.

Yeah its sort of funny really. Like there's something of an unspoken agreement among researchers to help each other out with paper access. Even though its technically illegal. People will often pass copies of papers to each other or the original authors will e-mail you a copy. Makes you wonder what percentage of citations in the average paper were acquired legitimately.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

Even then you can't necessarily get the papers you need. Especially if its from an obscure source. On several occasions during my nine years of studying I had to submit a request form to the library for them to formally attempt to get a copy of some papers from another University or major library. I went so far as to get in touch with a university library in another city to see if they could furnish me with one particular paper. Its an absolute nightmare.

I know, I work for a UK university. Hence the word "probably".

 

[Strazdas]

So the system finally broke. All those papers that should have been free to begin with (In US, by law) are now becoming pirated ones. And its not like the publishers actually need to paywall gate it. They recieve federal funding for hosting them and are supposed to charge ONLY the price it costs them to host them. The way it works now is just another monopoly (make no mistake, all those publishers are owned by same folks) thats trying to make you pay money for something that should legally be free. If it was up to me charging money for research paper should not be allowed at all.

 

[TotalerKrieger]

This site is awesome. It works perfectly. Kudos to Dr. Elbakyan.