- *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. * Scihub is not a pirate website, it is a demonstration of civil disobedience. Scihub rather helps science grow, and it contributes to better science communication. Scihub maximises the use of research papers, and eventually maximizes the impact of research. Scihub has been there for the past 10 years or less, but, the 'serial crisis' has been existing since long before the birth of Scihub. "The subscription prices of scholarly journals have been increasing at a rate faster than the inflation rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_rate for several decades." < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serials_crisis >. There is only profit, and more profit in science publishing (there is no question of loss). Major publishers' profit has been increasing consistently. < https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-business-scientific-publishing-bad-for-science>. And, for decades funding agencies are in the trap of the triple pay system - “the state funds most research, pays the salaries of most of those checking the quality of research, and then buys most of the published product.” < http://dst.sciencecentral.in/36/3/UAJB_A_1366194-Postprint.pdf > - *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. * Author's have never felt the scarcity of avenues to publish and they will never feel so (thanks to the web). Predatory journals are products of the author-pay open access journals (model). We should stop 'paying money to publish' to kill predatory publishers. Scihub is not the reason for the proliferation of predatory publishers. - *The copyright laws are to promote and incentivise intellectual output by protecting the rights of creaters*. "The primary purpose of copyright law is not so much to protect the interests of the authors/creators, but rather to promote the progress of science and the useful arts—that is—knowledge. To accomplish this purpose, copyright ownership encourages authors/creators in their efforts by granting them a temporary monopoly, or ownership of exclusive rights for a specified length of time. However, this monopoly is somewhat limited when it conflicts with an overriding public interest, such as encouraging new creative and intellectual works, or the necessity for some members of the public to make a single copy of a work for non profit, educational purposes. " < https://lib.siu.edu/copyright/module-01/purpose-of-copyright-law.php > Madhan On Wed, 23 Dec 2020 at 19:56, 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

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 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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-- Madhan, M

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

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 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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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 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

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 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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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@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 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, 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

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 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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