• viking@infosec.pub
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    5 months ago

    Random novels =/= knowledge.

    I’m totally supporting sci-hub and it’s quest for free access to academia, but contemporary books aren’t on the same level. Writers deserve to be paid.

    Classics are all in the public domain anyway.

    • Deceptichum@quokk.au
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      5 months ago

      Fiction writers deserve to be paid but not academic writers?

      Or is it that science should be free but culture should be gate locked?

      • explore_broaden@midwest.social
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        5 months ago

        It’s because the people making money off most academic papers are not the authors, rather the journal/conference they likely had to pay to publish in. Textbooks are a different story though.

      • viking@infosec.pub
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        5 months ago

        Scientific writers should be paid, but most of them receive grants for specific research or do their research in their function as employed researchers/lecturers at some university. Their work is then posted on some scalping journals that are charging the author a listing fee, and then charge readers an access fee, which they pocket in its entirety. Scientific authors receive ZERO compensation for their work.

        Source: Used to work in academia, published a few articles myself. Best case is that your work is considered “outstanding” and the journal graciously lists it for free instead of charging you for it.

      • FiskFisk33@startrek.website
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        5 months ago

        As it stands, they don’t get paid when you pay for reading it anyways. They themselves pay to publish it to a journal, the journal then sells it to you.

        The scientists aren’t paid by people reading their science, they are paid by grants, for doing the science in the first place.

        I wholeheartedly support academic “piracy”, it only hurts the gatekeepers.

    • jorp@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      we sure do twist and cram so many things into a capitalist framework, if only there were another way