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Comment by matheusmoreira | Hacker News Reader

> I find it unethical

Why do you think that? I cannot imagine anyone losing one second of sleep over it.

In this case, they can't even argue we're depriving creators of revenue they're owed. The only point of journals is peer review. Experts in the field that filter out the bad articles and publish the good ones. Peer review is the only thing that separates these glorified journals from a random website. Those experts don't see any of this money due to concerns over conflicts of interest. These reviewers could get together and create a blog and it would be better than these journals.

The way I see it, these journals have literally no reason to exist. It's unethical to pay them even a single cent for access to anything. The ethical and moral thing to do is to hasten their demise. It is our duty to society.

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All of that is true, but it is also irrelevant.

It does not matter what could be, we're talking about what is. And that is that someone is offering you access to this paper under some conditions (to which the authors and peer reviewers agreed). You can decide for yourself whether you'd like to accept these conditions or not.

But if the answer is "no", I cannot see how that justifies you getting a copy without paying. Where else in life is that a valid option? "I'd love to have a snickers bar, but I don't want to pay a dollar for it, so I guess I just take it." Obviously, there are differences between that example and sci-hub but for the core of the issue, these differences are negligible in my opinion.

We're not morally obligated to accept the status quo just because things always worked this way. Just because some entrenched monopolists that provide negative value to society managed to find a comfortable rent seeking position, we're morally obligated to pay tribute? Hell no. It boggles my mind that anyone could look at this and accept it.

> Where else in life is that a valid option? "I'd love to have a snickers bar, but I don't want to pay a dollar for it, so I guess I just take it."

Don't compare physical things to artificially scarce data. They are not the same. Physical things can't be copied infinitely and distributed worldwide at negligible costs.

With data, there is no economy. Economies arise when things are scarce. Data isn't. There is nothing to economize.

> Obviously, there are differences between that example and sci-hub but for the core of the issue, these differences are negligible in my opinion.

These differences are not negligible. Quite the opposite, they are key. The fact is once created data is worth nothing. It's infinitely abundant. Scientists and peer reviewers are the truly scarce resources here and they don't depend on journals to exist.

These monopolists try to make scientific articles artificially scarce but unlike the entertainment industry they don't actually provide any value whatsoever. They're just a brand name.

Your first paragraph is a nice example for a strawman argument: where have I claimed that we have to "pay tribute" or that I'm in favor of the status quo?

About copying vs. physical things - that's one of the aspects I had in mind when I wrote that I'm aware of the differences between that example and the scihub situation, but that I also think that they are not at the heart of the issue. Hence I don't subscribe to your argument against that.

Nor do I to your last sentence. Where's the scarcity?

You are not the only academic that feels this way.

> where have I claimed that we have to "pay tribute" or that I'm in favor of the status quo?

You're defending the notion that journals should be able to continue their rent seeking. Did I misunderstand?

> But if the answer is "no", I cannot see how that justifies you getting a copy without paying. Where else in life is that a valid option? "I'd love to have a snickers bar, but I don't want to pay a dollar for it, so I guess I just take it." Obviously, there are differences between that example and sci-hub but for the core of the issue, these differences are negligible in my opinion.

I think the differences are definitely not negligible. There are similarities on the surface, yes, but one can distinguish between the two cases by asking "would it be OK if everyone did this?"

Basically Kant's categorical imperative:

> Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law

In the case of stealing snickers, we can imagine that if everyone did so, then making or selling snickers would no longer be a profitable business, so in the end snickers would no longer be produced, and we would all be worse for it :(

On the other hand, if everyone were to pirate scientific papers, no economic harm would come to the scientists doing the research for those papers. Only the journals would risk going out of business if they don't adapt, and that would be (or could be; i'm not entirely sure) a good outcome, as it would incentivize a more open approach to science distribution and access :)

So, one can conclude that, despite the surface similarities, stealing snickers is morally wrong, while pirating scientific papers is not.

Like I said, I'm aware of the differences.

Interestingly, though, no-one who answered to my point has yet commented on the similarities. To me, no-one has yet made a convincing argument to justify why offering for free what others have the right to monetize should be considered okay.

> why offering for free what others have the right to monetize should be considered okay.

Because having the possibility to monetize something doesn't make it inherently right to do so. People have monetized things that we would now consider abhorrent to do, like human lives in the form of slaves, wives as property, and countless examples of human rights violations.

Heck, even today in many places of the world people monetize access to education or health care for example, prohibiting some people from accessing things that are considered basic human rights. That they have a "right" to monetize it doesn't make it okay to do so.

I guess the underlying questions here is: should we consider access to scientific publications a right that anyone should be able to exercise? I personally think that yes, freedom of information is a laudable goal, and is definitely worth the inconvenience of losing some antiquated journals.

If you don't agree, what do you think would be the issue with having universal access to scientific papers?

> what others have the right to monetize

Why do you believe these rent seekers have a right to monetize the work of other people?

I can at least understand where the entertainment industry is coming from. I don't agree with them, I think their business model is backwards. However I understand the fact it costs a ton of money to produce films, series.

These journals on the other hand are simply indefensible. They don't do research. They don't do peer review. They don't do much of anything except exploit their brand name. So it doesn't matter what the law says. We refuse to recognize it as legitimate. It doesn't matter what rights they have. We'll take them away.

> Where else in life is that a valid option? "I'd love to have a snickers bar, but I don't want to pay a dollar for it, so I guess I just take it."

If you were starving, and society was so misallocated in its resources that Snickers bars were in profound abundance, and political activism wasn't getting you anywhere, I would say you actually have every right, morally speaking, to take that Snickers bar.

But the other commenter is right. Comparing physical objects to duplicating intangible information is extremely misleading. If you take that Snickers bar, someone else can't eat it. That doesn't apply to duplication.

I anticipated that argument, it's what I meant when I wrote that I think there are difference but they are neglibile: whereever a Snickers bar is sold, there's usually more than one and taking one of them rarely impacts someone else who wants one (because there are usually plenty of others).

Exactly! When you download a copy of an article, there's an infinite number of copies available, and taking one of those copies almost never impacts someone else who wants one.

Many Sci-Hub users believe it is ethical to download copies of journal articles there, because they find the consequences of not paying for the article to be more beneficial to society than the consequences of paying: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism

In their view, closed access journal publishers are stifling academic discourse with extortionate fees (especially considering that they do not financially compensate the authors and reviewers), which means it would be most ethical to limit the closed access journal publishers' revenue in order to reduce their power and importance, and disrupt their business model to pave the way for open access journals. Not paying publishers for copies of articles is how Sci-Hub users help achieve this.

This is the "you were born a slave, and maybe slavery is unethical, but for you thats the way it is, therefore it's unethical for you not to do anything but serve the master".

I guess thats something of a stance.

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