Copyright & Pirated eBooks

[Amiieey]

Originally Posted by Fiat_Lux

Not even the major universities in the United States can afford the fees.

I don't remember if it was Library Genesis or Elsevier that claimed the user base for Library Genesis was academics in the United States, and not third world students, which is the target demographic. Either way, more than one researcher at a Big Ten University has publicly admitted to going to Library Genesis, when their library didn't have the material, because their research budget couldn't cover the US$30+ per article that Elsevier was charging at the time.

But it isn't just research papers that are too expensive. I've come across more than one highly respected professor, casually requesting a book for their university library, only to have it denied, because it was too expensive. Turns out that the US$500 that the prof thought was the hard copy price, was the price of the ebook. The hard copy was a multiple of that price.

Amber

Reminds me how in science, we are working towards an open access goal... Only to have so many journals charge a ton to read and review articles (unless you're with an institution). Off topic but I tried accessing an article from JoVE, a journal that prided itself on open science and accessibility. Now they charge to view articles, which is really too bad. I really, really needed it for an experiment I designed

[Ricky D'Angelo]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

There is a mismatch between the title of the thread + the "question" (a statement?) in the poll + the initial post.

I won't vote in the poll, but I will only focus on the initial post:



Use it of course. The more and easier access people have to knowledge, the better. The more people can read and learn, the better.

Archive.org is one of the greatest distributors/sharers of books. So is Project Gutenberg.
. . .

Allegedly, archive.org has a copy available of a book by a famous science fiction writer which may be copyrighted in the US. Most likely it was uploaded in a country where it is no longer in copyright. Also there is a spanish version on the book at the site. After viewing it, I'm nervously awaiting the knock on the door or nasty email by the authorities. Ironically, I have previously purchased this book on amazon and even purchased the audible narration.