How one perplexing pirate is plundering the publishers • The Medical RepublicThe Medical Republic

peter.suber's bookmarks 2019-02-07

Summary:

"If the dissemination of almost all scientific research can be achieved by one solitary hacker based in Eastern Europe, what could possibly be making these articles so expensive to produce? It’s not like publishers are covering the cost of doing the scientific research. That bill is picked up by the taxpayer. And the peer reviewing is usually donated labour.

The huge – and arguably humanitarian – Sci-Hub project is making the publishing industry more than a little nervous. In 2017, Elsevier successfully sued Elbakyan for $15 million in the US. In another case brought against Sci-Hub in 2017, the court awarded $4.8 million in damages to the American Chemical Society....

Publishers are now on the back foot in price negotiations because the unspoken threat of Sci-Hub lingers in the air. With around 300 institutions in Germany and Sweden refusing to renew their subscriptions with Elsevier, thousands of researchers had their access to journals suspended. How long before those stranded academics resort to piracy?

Sci-Hub may be the match that finally ignites the open access revolution, but what do we really know about the woman at the helm? What is she like? What is her end goal? Who is funding her operation? Is she an ally or a threat to the West?..."

Link:

http://medicalrepublic.com.au/one-perplexing-pirate-plundering-publishers/18957

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » peter.suber's bookmarks

Tags:

oa.new oa.sci-hub oa.copyright oa.interviews oa.guerrilla oa.people

Date tagged:

02/07/2019, 12:43

Date published:

02/07/2019, 07:43