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Comment by bpg_92 | Hacker News Reader

Welp, I used to get books, papers and software from non-legal sources when I was in undegrad, because I just couldn't afford it, now that I make some money I buy most of this stuff. The thing is, without all those resources in the past I couldn't have made it to where I am now. Just my 2 cents.

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I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing here?

Say you need to research some scientific algorithm or other, you paid $40 per paper just to do that? There will be 3-5 papers that are must-read, so $120-$200. Then there's another 5-10 papers that are referenced in the former, you might want to check, just for the few paragraphs that are referenced, which may contain crucial elements of the algorithm you are trying to write (often not explained in full in the original papers).

Even if you have that money to spare, wouldn't your research be hampered by the choice you stand whether that one extra paper at $40 is going to be worth the money?

Kudos to you, there is little respect these days for personal decisions in the area of information access. Pirating information is wrong, doesn't matter how you twist it. There is big difference between creating and promoting free content (great) and trying to break the law to access content that already exists and is subject to copyright law. After all, requesting payment is a deal between publishers and writers. By pirating copyrighted works you're not just breaking the right of publishers, but also the rights of millions of small content creators.

What do you do of researchers that pirate their own books, and tell you never ever to buy their books, but go to libgen? I have met at least 5 world-class scientists say that "because I don't do any money on it anyway", "it's a scam", and "I wrote this book to be read". And tell "it's wonderful to imagine that this poor student read my book, and she was afraid to say she downloaded it illegally"...

"Piracy" is a very nuanced subject, depending on what/who you are talking about.

There is no nuance there, these people had a personal choice of publishing their books through a traditional publisher and decided for that. It is just a tradeoff that you need to honor. Maybe next time they will just self-publish and have a book that is truly free without the need of pirating.

We have no real choice. Self-publishing means that the book doesn't count at all in the CV for grant applications, tenure applications, etc. Only the very top scientists that no longer have to fight for all these things can afford to make that "personal choice". For the rest, it's suicidal.

I also have a book at a major publisher, with an outrageous price, and when I saw it "pirated" I only felt joy at the fact that more people will get to read it and thus my work is more meaningful. And I also downloaded it myself, because I actually didn't have it in PDF, only in physical form.

I have published academic books like you, and I never had a problem with this once I understood the consequences of traditional publishing. These books are cataloged in good libraries and available in Amazon. If people don't have money they can go to a library and get a free copy. The day I want a book freely available in the web I will just write one and post it on in my web page. I like the idea that authors have the option to go one route or another. Pirating books doesn't enter into this equation.

Going to a library and getting a free copy is exactly what people are doing. The library is online, freely accessible without discrimination.

Since when have we asked authors permission to add their book to a library? In many places (including the US) if you publish a book it is mandatory to submit it to a library.

I have never seen an illegal library, have you? Don't try to confuse a respectable institution with pirate web sites that didn't ask permission to anyone to do their illegal thing.

What is the difference, asside from someone deeming copying 'illegal'?

There is nothing illegal about copying per se, as long as there are no provisions against it. This is a basic principle of human society. For example, there is nothing illegal about walking without shoes, as long as there is no regulation preventing it as it's the case at some government offices. Your reasoning is just trying to throw away our society principles to justify your behavior. My main contention is not that we shouldn't have free information, but that it is unethical to disregard existing laws just because you don't like them.

There is nothing unethical in braking the law. It is illegal to disregard existing laws, ethics is a different matter. There were many racist, sexist, oppressing laws in the past that we consider unethical today, and may even celebrate people who broke those unethical laws in protest to authorities and 'the society'.

True, there are situations where breaking the law is the ethical thing to do. However, you are trying to put access to a copyrighted book at the same level as fighting against sexism and racial oppression. Unless you can show that these situations are closely comparable (little clue: they're not), you're just creating an excuse to avoid following laws that don't benefit yourself.

In the case of copyrighted books or research papers, it could be a matter of life and death for the user, if we are talking about access to various types of medical research, for example.

Research papers in medicine are written for specialists, who already have access to them by means of employment. I don't know how access to that literature can save lives otherwise. Even if that was the case, it is a very far fetched way to prove that you need generalized civil disobedience with regard to copyright law.

In a lot of countries in the world, medical institutions or individuals don't have enough money to pay for access to research and books (lib-gen, the sister project of sci-hub also serves pirated books). And I agree, that might not be a proof we need civil disobedience in general (with regard to copyright law), but I think it does show that copyright law doesn't work well for medical research. I think similar could be proved for other areas covered by copyright law, but that would be a long discussion.

>Since when have we asked authors permission to add their book to a library?

As far as I know, libraries in the US purchase their materials like anyone else. They have the right to lend due to the Doctrine of First Sale[1], because what they lend they legally own.

>In many places (including the US) if you publish a book it is mandatory to submit it to a library.

According to Wikipedia, in the US publishers are required to submit two copies of a published work to the Library of Congress[0], not to distribute copies to public libraries.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_deposit#United_States

[1]http://www.ala.org/advocacy/copyright/copyrightarticle/libra...

> requesting payment is a deal between publishers and writers

Not in the case we're talking about here. Sci-hub doesn't provide copies of novels. It provides copies of scientific research papers, for which we, the public, have already paid with our tax dollars. The payments to journals are not deals between those publishers and the scientists; they are deals between those publishers and the government, to get us to pay again for something we've already paid for.

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