[LIS-Forum] Sci-Hub Case: The Court Should Protect Science From Greedy Academic Publishers

Fri Dec 25 07:50:15 IST 2020

This is an interesting and burning topic, and I request everyone to
contribute and have a healthy discussion! Everyone is entitled to have
his/her viewpoint. Let us be completely open to learn, have a very academic
discussion and see if we can do anything to make any change, even if it is
only a beginning. Let us not judge anyone.

My view points:

The needs as I see them:
1. Academicians and researchers NEED research information
2. Publishers publish books / journals and more research resources. Their
employees need to get money for their work, just like academicians and
researchers do
3. The world needs to arrive at an answer for how research publications can
reach everyone either free or at very affordable costs

How I view SciHub, publishers and those who need research (Strictly my view
points as of this moment; I am open to listen to different viewpoints -
will all respect)

1. Sci Hub is not taking the best approach to solve the problem - by
putting in stuff that they (apparently) hack from established sources and
hosting it on their site. In my viewpoint they are trying to take a Robin
Hood approach
2. Publishers need to arrive at a model of making the money they need, but
constantly work at the best, cost effective solutions. Personally I feel
that the more volumes they seek, they can bring down pricing. Of course
there are lots of "open to interpretation" concepts here. What is the
"money they need"? Very tough question!
3. Users - research users - need to learn lots more about intellectual
property and copyright. The copyright charges for an article, being very
high is debatable, but as long as IP laws exist, they need to either pay
the CR fee, or get an article through a library

I have come across PG medical students who have told me that articles they
need are not free online. When I ask - have you checked your library - they
get embarrassed because they have not! The internet is expected to be their
instant gratification area
In another mailing list - an academician wrote - through Sci Hub I get an
article in one click. On my University Library website - I have to go
through 5 levels of security. Why is this security feature there... it is
to protect this user! But - people need things "instantly"!

Security and easy access - need a balance, not at all easy though. So - I
believe there is lots more user education required for this part

In an article, I had also read that the people behind Sci-Hub appear to
have a long term goal of serious data-hacking. The article says - why would
one lady spend so much time to give out research information free by using
illegal methods? And moving so many articles from server to server - who
pays her to do all this? Why would she do this free?  Very thought
provoking questions

Once again request - *please only share view points*. Please do not judge
others' view points

Vasumathi Sriganesh
QMed Knowledge Foundation
A-3, Shubham Center, Cardinal Gracious Road
Chakala, Andheri East, Mumbai 400099, India
Tel: 91-22-40054474    Mob: +919867292230
Email: vasu at qmed.ngo  Web:www.qmed.ngo
MMC Speaker Code - MMC/MASS/00030/2016
Member: Academy of Health Professions Education
Our online courses - www.qmedcourses.in

On Thu, Dec 24, 2020 at 10:40 PM Murari Tapaswi <tapaswimurari at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear Dr. Koteswara Rao,
> 1. I have NOT supported Sci-Hub in my arguments. It has survived for 10
> years with all odds. Please understand the principle of the Survival of the
> fittest.
> 2. The publishers with experience of 300 years in business don't want to
> search for alternatives in their publishing models is a proof of pudding -
> with the existing model they have not run in any problems. Not even Sci-Hub
> has made reduce their fat earnings. Problems are only faced by readers,
> authors.
> 3. Your arguments are an injustice to the authors and funding agencies who
> invest their time and money to generate new information and have to give
> away copyright to the publishers alone. Publishers have been earning their
> profits at the loss to readers. And until they turn blind on this issue,
> agencies like Sci-Hub will keep growing. But they are not bothered - they
> are not finding solutions for their readers so the readers will find
> solution.
> 4. Your arguments on why authors have been publishing in their journals is
> another unrelated issue. Authors will go wherever grass is greener. If
> publishers are running in losses, they won't mind in discontinuing the
> publications and authors do find alternatives. The fact that the number of
> journals are growing in their house itself indicates that they run with
> high profits in spite of presence of Sci-Hub.
> 5. We are discussing on problems and solutions of/with publishers and not
> Sci-Hub. Sci-Hub is doing (and successful) what it wants. And it's users
> seem to be happy.
> 6. I do understand that nothing comes for free. But then publishers must
> understand that. They should give due share to the authors and funding
> agencies (and reviewers) for their contribution from their profits and not
> take that for free. In your thoughts the last sentence talks about
> coexistence. But that's not well understood by publishers. Can you please
> convey this to publishers? If you successfully convince publishers on this,
> you will be remembered for ever.
>
> Regards,
>
> Dr. Murari P. Tapaswi,
> Phone/WhatsApp: 9763341967
>
> On Thu, 24 Dec, 2020, 6:18 pm Koteswara Rao Mamidi, <mk-rao at hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Dear friends,
> >
> >
> >
> > Looks like many of our library colleagues are being carried away by the
> > high costs of journals, and monopolistic behavior of commercial
> publishers,
> > and pinned hopes on Open Access; but they have forgotten the crux of the
> > real problem. Let me ask my friends who support SciHub and Libgen answer
> > these questions:
> >
> >
> >
> > 1.   The commercial publishers have been playing a major role in the
> > scholarly communication system for more than 300 years. They are in this
> > business for profit (journals behind pay-wall) and not for charity? Due
> to
> > the 1986 recession and rising cost of printing, journal prices certainly
> > have soared beyond the reach of any academic library, and this has become
> > the bone of contention for us and authors.
> >
> >
> >
> > 2.  The subscription model had survived for so many years because of its
> > inherent quality, peer review, and prestige attached to the journals;
> > authors prefer to publish in these high-ranking journals by giving up
> their
> > copyrights in return for recognition and tenure promotions, etc. If cost
> is
> > the only factor, then we have seen cost escalation in almost every
> product
> > or service all these years; can anyone deny?
> >
> >
> > 3.  Since 1995, the Internet has opened up new avenues for publishing and
> > distributing scholarly literature freely to everyone. Around 2003, Open
> > Access initiatives paved the way for producing scholarly literature for
> > free. It is good to say that public-funded research articles should be
> made
> > available in open access, but who should pay for and how much? Despite
> > having thousands of OA journals, why authors are still publishing in
> > commercial journals?
> >
> > 4.    If Open Access model is best suited for the academic & research
> > community, why authors still publish in commercial journals? What is the
> > reason for the mushrooming growth of low-quality predatory journals
> without
> > peer-review and high APC, if not for money? Who will take the
> > responsibility of maintaining the quality, reputation, prestige, and
> impact
> > factor of OA journals?
> >
> >
> >
> > 5.    Sci-Hub and Libgen are ‘pirate websites’ without any institutional
> > affiliation, neither academic nor research. If they are really serious
> > about helping the scientific community, they should publish journals on
> > their own and give for free. Even the famous physics archive “ArXiv”
> stores
> > and distributes only pre-prints of articles. What right Sci-Hub and
> Libgen
> > have done is to simply download already published copyrighted material
> from
> > the Internet to their server and make it freely available to everyone in
> > the guise of helping science? What these two websites have done, can also
> > be replicated by any/many science philanthropists.
> >
> >
> >
> > 6.    As long as the academic community does not fully embrace open
> > access and stop publishing in commercial journals, subscription model
> will
> > continue to exist. Authors can either, wait and let the funding agencies
> > dictate the terms, or they can work actively to let the transition takes
> > place.
> >
> >
> > In my opinion, nothing comes for free in this world, there is always some
> > cost involved in every activity be it printing, publishing or
> web-hosting.
> > In this case, what Sci-Hub and Libgen had done is totally wrong and
> > illegal. We should remember that authors, publishers and libraries have a
> > symbiotic relationship and are integral part of the scholarly
> communication
> > system. People may not like but scholarship and business can co-exist in
> a
> > knowledge society provided all the stakeholders agree to work together
> for
> > a common goal of knowledge creation.
> >
> >
> > Dr M Koteswara Rao
> >
> > Retd. Librarian, Univ of Hyderabad
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> > *From:* LIS-Forum <lis-forum-bounces at ncsi.iisc.ernet.in> on behalf of
> > Murari Tapaswi <tapaswimurari at gmail.com>
> > *Sent:* Thursday, December 24, 2020 2:17 PM
> > *To:* Vinit Kumar <vinitbhu06 at gmail.com>
> > *Cc:* LIS forum <lis-forum at ncsi.iisc.ernet.in>; madhan muthu <
> > mu.madhan at gmail.com>
> > *Subject:* Re: [LIS-Forum] Sci-Hub Case: The Court Should Protect Science
> > From Greedy Academic Publishers
> >
> > I disagree with Prof. Vinit Kumar's arguments that (1) the publishers
> > charge heavily to compensate sci-hub downloads. The subscription of the
> > journals of these publishers were as high as of today before sci-hub was
> > born. (2) such acts would reduce the publication avenues in good
> journals -
> > this has not reflected in last 10 years (since sci-hub was born), and (3)
> > mushrooming low quality journals as a result of sci-hub, and reduction in
> > the avenues for publishing.
> > May be this would be a good project for Vinit Kumar and his students to
> > prove this with numbers after providing linkages.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Dr. Murari P. Tapaswi,
> > Phone/WhatsApp: 9763341967
> >
> > On Wed, 23 Dec, 2020, 10:33 pm Vinit Kumar, <vinitbhu06 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > These pirate websites are killing revenue of academic publishers
> > indirectly
> > > harming science communication. To compensate their losses due to these
> > > pirate websites the publishers increase subscription costs which are
> > again
> > > have to paid by funding agencies.
> > > No doubt reforms are needed to regress academic publishers' increasing
> > > subscription prices and Article Processing Fees but such kind of gross
> > > copyright infringements will hamper publishers' rights and ultimately
> > > reduce the publication avenues for authors. We have seen mushrooming of
> > low
> > > quality free journals in recent years compelling UGC to come up with a
> > > white list. The copyright laws are to promote and incentivise
> > intellectual
> > > output by protecting the rights of creaters.
> > >
> > > In my opinion, rather than asking everything for free we need to
> increase
> > > funding towards research.
> > >
> > > Regards --
> > > Vinit Kumar, PhD
> > > Assistant Professor
> > > Department of Library and Information Science,
> > > Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University (A central university)
> > > Lucknow
> > > 226025
> > >
> > >
> > > This message and any attachment are intended solely for the addressee
> and
> > > may contain confidential information. If you have received this message
> > in
> > > error, please contact the sender and delete the email and attachment.
> Any
> > > views or opinions expressed by the author of this email do not
> > necessarily
> > > reflect the views of the Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University,
> Lucknow.
> > >
> > >
> > > On Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 1:28 PM madhan muthu <mu.madhan at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Sci-Hub Case: The Court Should Protect Science From Greedy Academic
> > > > Publishers
> > > >
> > > > A court of law in India shouldn't allow itself to become a tool for
> > > > perpetuating inequalities in access to scientific literature in the
> > > > developing world.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://thewire.in/law/sci-hub-elsevier-delhi-high-court-access-medical-literature-scientific-publishing-access-inequity
> > > >
> > > > --
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> > > >
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