That’s what’s baffling to me. I can see assigning the copyright to the institution (i.e. their university). And I can see licensing. But the assignment of a copyright for something is typically due to either the exchange of significant money, or because it’s a “work for hire”.
It feels weird that, for no money exchanged, universities effectively encourage professors to give away their work product (that the university sometimes effectively pays them to develop!) in such a way that that same university has to pay to license it back.
I’m having a hard time even finding a mental model for that thought process, as I can’t think of any other profession where that happens.
I am using the term in the same way as you. Should we have a revolution in a university as proposed, the losers will be the faculty and staff at the universities. The university administration will sustain itself or grow to accommodate the needs to manage a new business model.
This discussion illustrates the beauty of what the Sci-Hub “publisher” is doing. She recognized that there are barriers in changing the system, so she’s tearing it down. Finally the publishers have an incentive to make a change. The old model is no longer viable. There’s a back door, now.
Saying that criminal activity is a viable alternative to the existing system seems like sketchy logic. And due to the nature of how academic publishing works, I would wager that the majority of the people who need journal articles are going to be paying for journals and licensing as doing otherwise seemingly undermines the value of their own work as well.
All good points. You’re right. It’s illegal. I’m not advocating for that in wealthy countries. However there are entire areas of the world who do not have access to scientific discovery. In fields such as medicine, life saving discoveries are kept out of the hands of those who need it. All of this out of the need to make a lot of money can also been seen as a sketchy motivation. I think she’s trying to force the issue.
Illegally and without any concern for other potential issues.
So who’s to decide what qualifies for illegal use?
I may live in a welathy country but as an individual unaffiliated with any research institution I cannot afford the high fees yet I will not violate the laws to get the data either.
Translation: You are advocating that folks in “non-wealthy countries” are fully within their right to violate copyright (and patent) regulations.
Sci-Hub is neither the only contender in the fight nor actually even a champion in the fight. Sci-Hub is simply openly exploiting a flaw in the current paradigm. Such an approach does not make Sci-Hub immune from being disreputable; it actually accentuates why Sci-Hub is disreputable. You can throw around all the championship language that you want (queue the Rocky Balboa music here). Your words ultimately do not stick.
If you want to find champions in this fight, you should sit with us in a university faculty senates when we discuss the resources needed to sustain increasing budgets for libraries for subscriptions to journals that our faculty need to remain competitive in their fields.
Finally, FWIW, the “old model” for publishing companies was paper publishing. Internet publishing is its new model.
Correct but you are saying it’s ok if it’s a poorer country. So Where do you draw the line? Why is it illegal and ok for one person or country and illegal an not ok for anbother?
I’d venture there’s a bit of a generational divide here. Sci-Hub is seen as a force for good by many younger academics and uncredentialed researchers, with the ultimate end of its advocacy being some mix of IP reform and legitimate services that allow unfettered access habits to continue legally.
This seems to have touched a nerve, so I’ll make this my last post. I appreciate everyone’s view points.
Legality: in the US, sites like sci-hub are illegal, but I cannot speak to other countries. I speculate that our copyright laws don’t necessarily have analogues elsewhere.
Ethics: taking something you don’t own without paying for it is of course not ethical, but if faced with a patient in front of you whose care could be answered but is blocked by a firewall, it’s not as easy a question. Your duty is to help that patient.
Economic issue: those with the ability to build upon the work of others are at an advantage to creating new innovations. Those without that access cannot equally participate and benefit from that progress.
Equity: when those with $$ make the rules and benefit from them, “rule breaking” by those who cannot follow will happen. And this should make us re-examine the system.
Not a realistic argument
I am not saying I agree with the current fee-based system (indeed I have major concerns) - but that said, there is no situation in the US where a physician would be unble to pay for an article that might help his patient.
I would imagine that in most countries advanced enough for peer-reviewed medical journals to be useful, the same would apply.
Again that doesn’t mean I am happy with the current system - just that the argument a patient might be harmed because the doc cannot afford the article is probably not realistic in most cases.
I heard a variant of this regarding making the underlying formula / production info for the COVID vaccine available to certain other countries. The argument (which I’m not in a position to evaluate the truthfulness of) was that giving the formula to the countries in question could actually be harmful, as they didn’t have the proper facilities to produce it and would thus not be turning out useful vaccines - even if the IP were freely given.
I think this is probably even more true due to the nature of medical treatment. From what I’ve heard from doctors, one article tends to not establish a useful treatment protocol except in the cases of diseases where one article is better than nothing, as the disease is vanishingly rare.
Plus when the medical literature is used for making treatment decisions, in 95% of the cases the doc reads the abstract (which is free) and no more. The rest of it is generally important for initial peer review and for researchers who will expand on the research or for authors who will conduct a meta-analysis or systematic review to synthesize multiple articles together.
But your local treating doctor is extremely unlikely to ever go beyond the text in an abstract - which is available for free in virtually all cases in the medical literature.
Don’t forget grant money… that’s the big one. If a junior faculty member is pulling in $5-7 million NIH or NSF grants, that person is getting tenure and it doesn’t matter what or where that person published.
And speaking of grants, I think the reason all of this is so expensive for the average outsider is that everything is paid for with grant money. Universities use overhead costs from faculty grants to pay for subscriptions among other things, so its not like they’re using their own money. Same with faculty, just put the cost on the grant. Since nobody is using their own money to pay for this stuff, nobody really cares what it costs, unless you’re an average Joe outsider who wants access. Then it hits you.
Hey @OogieM, have you tried sending an email to the corresponding author on the paper you’re interested in and simply asking them for a copy?
Sorry. I didn;t mean to imply that this worked in 100+% of cases. Like I said, it works 98% of the time. But, then again, I am almost always looking for papers published relatively recently in a field without an unusually high mortality rate.
Sorry for posting what seems a reasonable solution. I’ll go delete it now.
No, that’s ok it is a reasonable solution and I must admit that I would bet that needing old scientific papers isn’t exactly the norm.
Even if you are gone it might be a reasonable solution with a bit of preparation.
Who’s to say you can’t set up some sort of caretaker to pass on the papers of interest to anyone who asks? A Scientific Legacy that goes on after you are gone?
