Paper Help Fiasco - Walminski Investigates!
I've decided to become an investigative journalist, just like that Dancing on Ice Star supremo - Donald McIntyre. I've contacted Wulters Kluwer, Science Direct, Emerald, Jstor, Gale and Infotrac and asked them one simple question:
"Is it okay to download a journal article from your site (at a uni that subscribes) and send it to an interested 3rd party for non-commercial gain?"
Guess what they all said - yes, that's fine. Provided it is a read only copy - no problems at all. A couple of them even laughed at my question, as if I was being stupidly anal about it.
So, I've procrastinated in a productive way and found out that there is nothing deviant or unlawful about sharing a read only pdf copy of an article with a thrid party colleague.
Case closed. :-)
Wow Wal, you've taken procrastination to a new level :-)
Did yu phone them, or did they LOL by email?
I was pretty certain that there was nothing wrong with downloading a journal article and sending it to someone else to read (provided it's for non-commercial gain). So I called them all up to check at their UK offices, but e-mailed ScienceDirect. It was half and hour of not having to do any work. But now back to work - eurgh! :-)
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Well there you go. Turns out I was wrong. Nice bit of research - shame it can't go somewhere in your thesis :-)
Heh, it was good to think there was a band of fearless outlaws, willing to put their necks on the line for academic freedom :-)
I've decided to become an investigative journalist, just like that Dancing on Ice Star supremo - Donald McIntyre. I've contacted Wulters Kluwer, Science Direct, Emerald, Jstor, Gale and Infotrac and asked them one simple question:
"Is it okay to download a journal article from your site (at a uni that subscribes) and send it to an interested 3rd party for non-commercial gain?"
Guess what they all said - yes, that's fine. Provided it is a read only copy - no problems at all. A couple of them even laughed at my question, as if I was being stupidly anal about it.
So, I've procrastinated in a productive way and found out that there is nothing deviant or unlawful about sharing a read only pdf copy of an article with a thrid party colleague.
Case closed. :-)
Case closed, indeed. But before really closing the case, I have to point out that you were very selective regarding publishers to whom you decided to call or email. There are a lot of publishers who do not allow unauthorised third party users to use their paid material (Cambridge Journals and Oxford Journals being among them). Or this is at least what is stated in their licence documents..
But it is really a good thing that so many publishers allow sharing articles.. so I really want to thank you for investigating this :-)
Case closed.
