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Comment by fifnir | Hacker News Reader

Yes it is: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/04/whos-downloading-pira...

That article never once mentioned "PI" or "Professor", not that it's even on-topic. This article is about setting up a lab on a shoestring budget (by acquiring used equipment or negotiating discounted use on communal equipment).

I don't think Step-1 for acquiring lab equipment is pirating a research article.

Just for you, the caption under the article illustration reads:

"Researchers from Ghana take part in TReND in Africa’s Advanced Open Labware workshop in Cape Town, South Africa, this April.Credit: Agnieszka Pokrywka/TReND in Africa"

How many researchers in Ghana do you think have the funds to buy research papers at $30,- per shot?

You don't have to buy them if you request a copy from the authors. The authors don't make any money when you pay to download a paper from a journal. So they'd have no reason not to send you a pdf.

And wait a few weeks to get replies, and annoy the authors by having to ask repeatedly, ... Yes it works, no it's not a great mechanism to entirely rely on. In comparison, Sci-Hub beats the official journal websites in convenience.

Now we're into matters of convenience and impatience though rather than pleas of poverty. Doesn't quite have the same weight.

I really dislike when people make arguments along the lines of "it works, why are you complaining".

It's not about convenience it's about how some of us things should be. Which is that (at the very least scientific) knowledge should be free and open and accessible and we don't see why a private company should be making huge profits (and even worse influence the direction of science) while they are offering almost nothing in return.

"knowledge should be free and open and accessible "

But it is. You just have to email the authors and wait a bit.

That's like saying that milk is free because if you visit a farm the farmer will let you milk a glass out of his cows

If the person just got hired to be a professor at a university, they already know how to access research articles, one way or another. However they've done it, they are well beyond this "Step-1".

If this piece were about how some of the best young software developers who just got hired by some .org have figured out frugal ways to build their own servers by using 2nd hand equipment from previous builds of Google and Amazon servers; it'd be like someone saying: "Step-1: visit piratebay.org"

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