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

24 Dec 2020


      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, 
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  on behalf of
Murari Tapaswi 
*Sent:* Thursday, December 24, 2020 2:17 PM
*To:* Vinit Kumar 
*Cc:* LIS forum ; madhan muthu <
mu.madhan@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,  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
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On Tue, Dec 22, 2020, 1:28 PM madhan muthu  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-lite...
...
...
--
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