this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2025
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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[–] meme_historian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 261 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)

"stolen" is such an exaggerated misrepresentation...news organizations should really do better. When you steal something from someone, the owner loses access to it. She just liberated public research.

[–] Trihilis@ani.social 78 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

When a regular person makes something available that shouldnt be behind a paywall to begin with it's stealing. When a billionaire or company uses ai to gather data from paid sources or just straight out plagiarises it's just maximising profits.

[–] Fisch@discuss.tchncs.de 42 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Hey hey hey, hold on just a second. It's not called "maximizing profits", we don't do that! It's called ✨innovation✨

[–] meme_historian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
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[–] Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Also I have met people who have published some pretty important papers, most of them use scihub on a weekly basis, and none of them care that their papers get "stolen". And they all have some strong opinions about Elsevier.

[–] cypherpunks@lemmy.ml 13 points 3 weeks ago

These articles were stolen, by the paywall operators. Elbakyan rescued them from the thieves. 🎉

[–] shath@hexbear.net 11 points 3 weeks ago

like stealing video games that you technically license if you buy, you're not stealing anything except access which is fundamentally the only thing they can sell

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[–] UniversalMonk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 153 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

I realize this is an older article from 2016. But it's just so good, I had to share it in case some here aren't familiar with her. Her name is Alexandra Elbakyan and she's the person behind Sci-Hub, a library website that provides free access to millions of research papers, regardless of copyright, by bypassing publishers' paywalls in various ways.

And she's my personal hero. :)

[–] alucard@feddit.org 18 points 3 weeks ago

Thanks for sharing!

[–] lukecooperatus@lemmy.ml 122 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (12 children)

“People often say to me, ‘You don’t pay the authors. You don’t pay the reviewers. You hardly print anymore. The Web is free. Why do you charge?’” said H. Frederick Dylla, the former director of the American Institute of Physics and board member of the Association of American Publishers. “It sounds like a compelling argument. But it actually isn’t.”

Albert Greco, a publishing expert at Fordham University who is working on a book about scholarly publishing, said those making that argument are forgetting everything they learned or should have learned in economics class.

“There are costs,” he said. “Does The Washington Post have a paywall?”

Yes.

“So is it fair then if some high-school student wants to really follow the Supreme Court and doesn’t have the money to pay?” Greco said. “Life is a bitter mystery. We can’t give everything away for free. It’s not that kind of country.”

These assholes don't even have a better reason for fleecing everyone than base greed, and they don't try to hide it.

[–] ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml 36 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

The existence of publishers for scientific literature is completely unnecessary in the modern era. They exist only to make profits to continue their existence. They don't actually provide value anymore when research institutions can just conduct peer review and then let researchers self-publish.

They create negative value (a bottleneck) by limiting who can access research for just... aggregating and hosting articles.

[–] jabathekek@sopuli.xyz 12 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

wouldn't it be funny if I slapped in a few ssds into an old desktop I found on the side of the road and hosted the entirety of human knowledge from it

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[–] 1Fuji2Taka3Nasubi@lemmy.zip 32 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

‘You don’t pay the authors. You don’t pay the reviewers.

We can’t give everything away for free. It’s not that kind of country.

Instead, he just takes everything from authors and reviewers for free. Is he living in a different country?

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[–] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 21 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

“It sounds like a compelling argument. But it actually isn’t.”

Well, I'm convinced!

[–] loutr@sh.itjust.works 11 points 3 weeks ago

Refuses to elaborate

Sues

[–] ButtBidet@hexbear.net 20 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

economics class

which is absolute ideology anyhow

“Does The Washington Post have a paywall?”

wow, you're using the everyone else is doing it argument. These are fucking children

[–] Orcocracy@hexbear.net 16 points 3 weeks ago

Also the Washington Post actually pays its writers.

[–] ThermonuclearEgg@hexbear.net 10 points 3 weeks ago

This is an insult to children, who are generally willing to share and kind people, unlike these corporate ghouls

[–] lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com 18 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

former director of the American Institute of Physics

arXiv, which physicists setup nearly as far back as the web, would have a word with this guy. The web was invented at CERN practically so physicists could share research documents.

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[–] SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone 18 points 3 weeks ago

Yeah lmao, that's the worst possible argument he could give I think

"Have you forgotten your economics class?" And then compared public research to a private newspaper

Like, lmao

[–] GnuLinuxDude@lemmy.ml 13 points 3 weeks ago

Elbakyan is an immeasurably more virtuous, noble and honorable person than these Dylla and Greco worms.

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[–] fckreddit@lemmy.ml 110 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Stolen papers. Absolutely. Stolen by corporations.

[–] i_am_hiding@aussie.zone 56 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I wrote one of those papers. The fuckers charged me $1000 to publish it as open access, then other journals download it and stick it on their websites and charge $60 to read it. What a joke!

[–] lukecooperatus@lemmy.ml 21 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Ignorant person checking in with probably a dumb and oversimplified question, but what prevents you and other science researchers from posting your writing independently? Why must you submit to these corpo controlled publications?

[–] ubergeek@lemmy.today 33 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

If you don't get published, you don't get cited. If you don't get cited, it appears your work isn't important.

That said, every researcher I've emailed requesting a copy of a paper gladly supplied it, and many put them up on their uni sites.

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[–] Treetrimmer@sh.itjust.works 10 points 3 weeks ago

Yep, before sci hub you could always just email an author and probably get the paper that way, they aren't the ones profiting.

[–] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 73 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

As someone in science that has used this many times, I can't emphasize enough how much this has accelerated research in the modern era. I am so grateful for her work.

[–] Treetrimmer@sh.itjust.works 26 points 3 weeks ago

Fr. After I graduated I was cut off from access to scientific literature, which is a major blow when trying to keep up in ones field.

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[–] Crotaro@beehaw.org 53 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Alexandra is the hero students (and scientists) all over the world need! And I'm so glad that my former profs acknowledged and recommended Sci-Hub to us. So many people wouldn't be able to graduate without debt (or "even more debt" for the Americans) otherwise.

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[–] Allero@lemmy.today 52 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Still insane to me that one woman literally saves the world of science from all this corruption

[–] MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 21 points 3 weeks ago

Perhaps not saved, but I'd venture the most significant nail in the coffin of the scientific publishing mafia so far, pursued with integrity and honor. The rise of open publishing that followed is very telling, and in my mind directly attributable to Alexandra's work and it's popularity, they know they need to adapt or (probably and) die.

Still need to work on the publish or perish mentality, getting negative results published, and getting corporate propaganda out of the mix, to name a few.

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[–] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 42 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

articles aren't - and cannot be - stolen; articles are meant to be read.

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[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 24 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Following in Aaron Swartz's footsteps.

Hopefully she doesn't get treated the way he did.

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[–] PunkRockSportsFan@fanaticus.social 24 points 3 weeks ago (6 children)
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[–] slacktoid@lemmy.ml 23 points 3 weeks ago

Is that the Anna from Anna's archive?

/s

[–] Tiger666@lemmy.ca 23 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

"Stolen"...where did the originals go?

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[–] ChillCapybara@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Filling in Aaron Swartz footsteps

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[–] ThraawnSolo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

At first glance I thought, "so that's what Anna looks like."

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[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 15 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Public knowledge can't be stolen IMHO

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[–] drspod@lemmy.ml 15 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Kudos for being publicly visible and not getting disappeared by the copyright mafia.

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[–] Sixtyforce@sh.itjust.works 14 points 3 weeks ago

Mad respect.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

While it's true that publishers do something of value, the amount they charge is absurd.

What makes it even worse is that so many of the people involved are donating their labour. It reminds me of college sports in the US. The actual people doing the work, the athletes, are forced to do it for free. Meanwhile, a few select groups: coaches, TV networks, etc. are making huge amounts of money.

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[–] Vase@feddit.org 13 points 3 weeks ago

So she is the real Trinity character.

[–] Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 3 weeks ago

You see, the problem, publishers, is that your "business" should not have been a business in the first place.

[–] chemicalwonka@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
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[–] ModestCrab@lemmy.wtf 10 points 3 weeks ago

What would Jesus do?

[–] TheLepidopterists@hexbear.net 10 points 3 weeks ago
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