Indian academics throw weight behind Sci-Hub and LibGen in landmark case

For a developing country signing up to an IP system under which most of the important IP assets are foreign... I find it hard to see an argument.

Ofcourse, in this case (SciHub), I am guessing the argument would be that copyrighting research material (science / knowledge) is itself absurd and detrimental to society, and that should trump the interests of the copyright holder.

Even if everything else you'd said was true - your conclusion does not follow. A system in which the state enforces prevention of copying is an anathema and must be dismantled. The access of authors to copy-rent incoming does not justify its existence.

> The copyright is the only source of income to authors outside of the academic world.

That's not true, in two aspects. First, there are multiple other potential sources of income for authors of popular works. Second, most authors of most works don't make money off of the copyright anyway, as not very many people/organizations pay for copies.

> And generally, authors should have a say about the use of their work.

I disagree. Just like poets don't have a say about the use of their poems, so should the case be about articles, books, software, composed music etc.

> as long as it serves the author, not to be stolen by the publisher

IIANM, most copy-rent money goes to publishers, not authors.

There is also peer review. But the peer reviewers typically don't get any money or even recognition for the time they invested. And that peer review happens before the paper is potentially published and then it will be in its final form.

Sites like Arxiv allow you to update your paper if there is feedback (aka post-publication peer review) which allows for a much larger audience of (constructive) critics.

Meanwhile SciHub and Arxiv host papers for free. So yes, it's pretty much only prestige that makes the difference.

So you can still continue to publish in journal, while the research is also still freely available. Usually you are also allowed to share the published article via email, just not put it publicly available on your website...

If it was funded by the taxpayers it should be accessible to (all the) taxpayers. This is something that EU (usa,...) should regulate and make it mandatory. If you expect Johnny the Plumber to pay for research, Johnny expects to be able to read what you did with his money.

That's usually just a deflection, you have to pay $5000+ to publish in those newly-established open-access-offshoot journals or pay equivalent for the open access privilege in the old journals.

Prestige still has a hefty price.

anything to support your claim? or just a bad generalization?

In 2018, 11 European research-funding organizations formed what is known as cOAlition S with the primary objective to ensure full, immediate, open access to all publications containing research data obtained in projects funded by its member agencies. The chief premises of cOAlition S were laid down in Plan S, which is scheduled for implementation in June 2020. So nowadays when someone wins grants from these agencies he’s required to publish his results in open access.

It’s not ideal, because many people reserve grant money for open access fees but AFAIK the policy also allows to publish behind paywall as long as you provide publicly available copy in repository (institutional or public like arxiv etc). In my opinion the second option is much better (as it saves money), but not all journals allow to put copy of the article in public repos (sometimes they require that the public version is either before editor’s revisions or puts some time embargo, like a year or 6 months, for publishing final version of the article).