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Russian woman makes science information avaiable to masses, Jews try to shut her down

Submitted by: Odio @ 08:24 AM | Saturday, February 13, 2016 | (url: http://www.scienc...)

A researcher in Russia has made more than 48 million journal articles - almost every single peer-reviewed paper every published - freely available online. And she's now refusing to shut the site down, despite a court injunction and a lawsuit from Elsevier, one of the world's biggest publishers.

For those of you who aren't already using it, the site in question is Sci-Hub, and it's sort of like a Pirate Bay of the science world. It was established in 2011 by neuroscientist Alexandra Elbakyan, who was frustrated that she couldn't afford to access the articles needed for her research, and it's since gone viral, with hundreds of thousands of papers being downloaded daily. But at the end of last year, the site was ordered to be taken down by a New York district court - a ruling that Elbakyan has decided to fight, triggering a debate over who really owns science.

"Payment of $32 is just insane when you need to skim or read tens or hundreds of these papers to do research. I obtained these papers by pirating them," Elbakyan told Torrent Freak last year. "Everyone should have access to knowledge regardless of their income or affiliation. And thats absolutely legal."

If it sounds like a modern day Robin Hood struggle, that's because it kinda is. But in this story, it's not just the poor who don't have access to scientific papers - journal subscriptions have become so expensive that leading universities such as Harvard and Cornell have admitted they can no longer afford them. Researchers have also taken a stand - with 15,000 scientists vowing to boycott publisher Elsevier in part for its excessive paywall fees.

Don't get us wrong, journal publishers have also done a whole lot of good - they've encouraged better research thanks to peer review, and before the Internet, they were crucial to the dissemination of knowledge.

Category: Technology | 31 Comments
Tags: science

02-13-16 - 08:54 AM
every published
02-13-16 - 08:56 AM
Awesome
02-13-16 - 09:05 AM
odio is a sjw
02-13-16 - 09:17 AM
Interesting
02-13-16 - 09:34 AM
Good. The companies profiting off scientific journals remind me of book publishers that make $200+ books for course curriculums. They're completely useless middlemen looking to gouge people any way they can.
02-13-16 - 09:56 AM
I feel strongly about this.
plz update propriety laws to 2016.
02-13-16 - 10:22 AM
cool beans

off to the gulag with her tho

wasted p
02-13-16 - 10:29 AM
but what if we end up with a more educated world now?

must suck for absent to be honest
02-13-16 - 11:55 AM
[img]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_UB2oM0WpRN0/SwPr1ocNq9I/AAAAAAAAAdE/7OT7MVfaCPs/s1600/detroit20science20center-full.jpg[/img]
02-13-16 - 12:19 PM
Looks like the Streisand effect will be strong with this one. Never heard of this site but now that it's in the news and she's making it sound like a fight for scientific knowledge freedom she'll get tons of backers. :weird:
02-13-16 - 12:31 PM
Yeah this shit is out of control

Don't worry...CISPa will shut this down for us

[YouTube]Myw7DeOB3Fc[/youtube]

I mean preety soon someone is going to own vowels and we will have to pay to use or say them
02-13-16 - 12:54 PM
How big is the torrent file?
02-13-16 - 01:25 PM
Originally posted by Piata  
Good. The companies profiting off scientific journals remind me of book publishers that make $200+ books for course curriculums. They're completely useless middlemen looking to gouge people any way they can.


In most cases they are the same company.

Science should be free - but publishers aren't gonna give up on this one easily...and journal societies need them or the quality of publications could drop rapidly (how valuable is a free article if it's badly written and/or full of errors?)

Publishers don't contribute much, but it's enough that I don't think you can just cut them outta the process entirely, unless journal societies are all gonna start paying for and organizing copyediting, typesetting and proofing
02-13-16 - 01:34 PM
I remember when librarians were competent enough to handle that tasking. They love getting paid near nothing

And in facials... and lots and lots of facials
02-13-16 - 04:25 PM
Elsevier could just alter their biz plan to subscription, like P.A.C.E.R. (Public acess to court electronic records). If they aren't even paying royalties, I mean, Come On.

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