Comment · Sat, August 15, 2020 · Natrium Health & Nootropics Depot
Reading Paywalled Studies For Free
Original post in this thread
MisterYouAreSoDumb · 103 points
So I figured I would make a post about this, because fuck putting scientific knowledge behind paywalls! Human knowledge should never be hidden and forced to be paid for to be seen. Our tax dollars fund a lot of this research anyway, and they want us to pay to read it? Go fuck yourselves! Humanity will only advance if we allow open access to scientific knowledge. One of the founders of Reddit, Aaron Swartz, was literally driven to suicide by the system for trying to allow open access to scientific knowledge. That or he was actually killed for it. Look it up. It's totally fucked up what they did to him for trying to give the general public access to scientific information that their own tax dollars paid for! A disgusting display of what the United States has become...
So what you all should do here is to go download the plugin Unpaywall. I have it for Firefox. Once you do that, it recognizes if you are on a scientific paper, and puts a little lock in the right side of your screen. If the lock is green, you can click it and get the full study.
Take this study for example: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32688366/
[This is what I see when I am on that page.](https://imgur.com/a/PNA…
What they were answering
elimc · 3 points
Ok, interesting. It sounds like you have definitely consulted your legal experts on this matter, so I will defer to you, u/MisterYouAreSoDumb.
I guess the legal theory is that the free speech aspect makes it different than using a physical item that has been knowingly stolen by someone else.
Also, I think the name should be changed to sci-hug, as per your suggestion in paragraph two, as that's how I feel when I use it.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Natrium Health & Nootropics Depot
Remember, I have lawyers but I am not a lawyer. My stance on matters is formed around opinions from my lawyers and my personal experience, but I am not qualified to really say how one would fare in a court of law. Never take anything you hear on Reddit as gospel without speaking to an actual attorney on the matter. As with anything to do with the law, it is up to interpretation till we have settled case law on the matter. I am also biased, as I feel free access to information is crucial for the human species to advance. So my position on the matter is not an objective one. Keep that in mind.