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My stance is that these websites are a great boon to the research community and they were certainly extremely helpful for my research. I think they should be applauded rather than persecuted, and while they may be illegal now, I think a way to make them legal should be found (in the same way I can download articles legally through my university's subscription to all the major publishers and journals).

Can I thank them in the acknowledgements section of my thesis?

Yoni Rozenshein
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    You can, but it would be unwise to do so. Just like you wouldn't write "I thank Mr. X for sending me PDFs of articles that I couldn't download legally", you shouldn't acknowledge illegal websites. – Gimelist Mar 20 '15 at 07:49
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    you may simply donate its founders, that will be the best way to thank them – Norbert Mar 20 '15 at 11:45
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    I think that such an acknowledgement is likely to create a bad impression as it basically says that you do not respect intellectual property rights, which would be regarded as a negative quality in most academic disciplines. – Dikran Marsupial Mar 20 '15 at 13:14
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    That makes me wonder if you should also thank all the authors and publishers who are either too busy or too oblivious to go after those illegal sites. – Penguin_Knight Mar 20 '15 at 13:37
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    If you do, and I wouldn't recommend it, you should keep in mind that any specific acknowledgement could be used as a legally binding means to persecute that website and the people that run it for their illegal actions. So, the consequences would not affect you and you alone. (Though they would still affect you) – Zibbobz Mar 20 '15 at 14:19
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    A phrasing suggestion: "Thank you to those who provided me with copies of X textbooks". It could also refer to people who donated them. – Bobson Mar 20 '15 at 15:18
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    I think it is not a great idea, for the reasons cited in Pete L. Clark's answer (more or less). On the other hand, I think that just posting this question (and it receiving as much attention as it does!) is a step in the right direction (with respect to freedom of information). In fact, I believe that most likely, the impact of this question is already greater than whatever you would write in the acknowledgements will ever have (usually, not many people read a thesis, and probably less of those who carefully read acknowledgements, so unless it turns out to be truly exceptional...). – tomasz Mar 20 '15 at 22:39
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    @DikranMarsupial: it basically says that you do not respect intellectual property rights, which would be regarded as a negative quality in most academic disciplines. In academia we don't require all our colleagues to agree with our political opinions or face our wrath. –  Mar 21 '15 at 01:44
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    These sites don't operate on the behalf of freely available scientific content. It is just a source of income for those operating the site (ads, bitcoin donations, ...) Don't be naive and blame yourself by thanking them. It is highly unprofessional. – lejonet Mar 21 '15 at 08:34
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    @Ben Crowell intellectual property is not a matter of "political opinion" it is a matter of ethics. – Dikran Marsupial Mar 21 '15 at 14:04
  • ... and by the way "face our wrath" is a rather hyperbolic representation of "likely to create a bad impression"! – Dikran Marsupial Mar 21 '15 at 14:11
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    It would be a good idea to thank also those who share books and articles legally. For instance, authors uploading their papers on arXiv or on their webpages. – Federico Poloni Mar 21 '15 at 14:59
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    @lejonet: that varies, I’m pretty sure. Some sites — e.g. the ones styled as general file-sharing hosts, for instance, which strongly encourage one to sign up for an account — are certainly out for money. But there are others — more library-styled — that don’t encourage registration, don’t carry ads, generally don’t otherwise appear to be monetising their content, and claim that they are motivated by ideals of openness. If you find this implausible, compare all the hours of volunteer labour that go into the free software movement, from largely similar motivations. – PLL Mar 21 '15 at 15:29
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    @DikranMarsupial : Is it ethical to charge 150 euros for a book to a university professor whose monthly pay is 1000 euros and whose state funded university has not purchased library books in some years? Is it ethical to charge the public university 15 euros for a scan of an article? – Dan Fox Mar 21 '15 at 15:48
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    @Dan Fox It is what is known as "commerce". If books are over-priced, then publishers will bring the costs down if we don't buy them. If we do buy them, it is an indication the book is worth the price, and hence it is a fair trade. If authors want to make books available cheaply (which I would applaud) there is nothing to stop them from publishing their books using a publisher such as lightning-source of lulu. If an author wants to make some money in return for the effort in writing a book (which is a lot), I see nothing unethical in that. If someone wants to support making ... – Dikran Marsupial Mar 21 '15 at 17:23
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    high quality academic materials freely available, then the solution is simple, produce the material and give it away (or support those who do make it freely available). Personally it is not clear to me why academics still use commercial publishers, as it has been demonstrated that journals and books can be competently compiled and distributed without them at little or no cost to the author or the reader. However, in my view, high cost doesn't legitimize the theft of intellectual property, I think Ferrari's are over-priced, but it would be unethical to use that as an excuse to steal one! ;o) – Dikran Marsupial Mar 21 '15 at 17:26
  • Should we thank a library, a bookshop, or Amazon, that provided legal copies? Should we thank the office suppliers, that provided paper to write? – Quora Feans Mar 22 '15 at 01:29
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    @DIkranMarsupial: Your claims about how commerce works suppose a lot of conditions about efficiency and freeness of markets that are (badly) false for the markets under discussion. In the particular market under debate, that for books and journals, the pricing is determined mainly by institutional factors in the US and to a lesser extent Europe. For the individual professor, particularly one not in the US, there is no market and no choice. For many researchers there is no "legal" access available at all. That's of course not what your "commerce" argument assumes. – Dan Fox Mar 22 '15 at 20:38
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    If any of the committee members has any book on that site, book which you might have not even used, I wonder what (s)he would think about the acknowledgement. – Nick S Mar 22 '15 at 21:02
  • @DanFox Your comments about the efficiency and freeness of the market suggest you didn't read the part of my comment where I pointed out that there are plenty of publish on demand printers that mean that authors can publish academic text books at very low cost, should they choose to do so. Mrs Marsupial does exactly that and I have helped edit books published in that manner. Commerce has already provided the means to bring down book prices, you might ask yourself why academics choose not to use them more widely. – Dikran Marsupial Mar 23 '15 at 08:07
  • And as for journals, see jmlr.org - a top CS journal that is free for both authors and readers. As I said, any academics capable of using LaTeX have no real need for traditional commercial publishers, which indicates that the market is not as "false" as suggested. – Dikran Marsupial Mar 23 '15 at 08:41
  • Absolutely not. If you use such a website to obtain downloaded material, that is something to keep to yourself. – Tom Jun 26 '21 at 21:38

7 Answers7

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You can thank whomever you want in the acknowledgments of your thesis, but there may be consequences that you have to live with.

In my opinion it is a bad idea to admit to illegal activity in a formal document like this. Once you write that, you cannot unwrite it: it will be archived for the rest of your career. I don't really think you'd get in any trouble directly, but by doing so you're advertising the fact that you are willing to break rules that you don't like and do so entirely openly. I think that a lot of potential employers prefer employees who when they break the rules for a good reason, do so more quietly.

I also don't really see what you're gaining by doing this. A thesis acknowledgment is not a step toward legal free downloading of texts. I happen to agree with you that "a way to make them legal should be found". One way I work towards this is that I make all of my lecture notes -- some of which are very close to being textbooks -- freely available on the internet. Whenever I have spoken with publishing companies, I mention at the first meeting my requirement that my material be made freely available on the internet. To my surprise, they have not walked out of the room. I also have largely stopped assigning expensive required texts.

In summary: an acknowledgment to the providers of illegal content is a microscopic flouting of the establishment, not a helpful act. I recommend that you think a bit more carefully about what you can do to actually improve the situation.

Pete L. Clark
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    From a personal-benefit standpoint, I think your answer is well-reasoned. But I disagree with the claim that OP's idea is not beneficial. Publicly declaring that you are one of the people who has done something taboo is a strong way to dispel the taboo. Some (much more serious) examples that come to mind are LGBT coming-out, undocumented coming-out, and the recent phenomenon of women publicly telling abortion stories. Of course there is a personal cost, but it may reduce the personal cost others face in the future. – R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE Mar 20 '15 at 05:13
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    @R.. But does that public declaration have to be made in a thesis? I'd much rather see it on the author's personal page or blog than in a serious work of scientific literature. I'd rather not see science and politics mix if I can help it. – Gyu Eun Lee Mar 20 '15 at 07:20
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    it will make it very easy for a publisher to take you to court for the cost of each book on your bibliography that you didn't pay for! – JamesRyan Mar 20 '15 at 11:33
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    @R: First of all, the activity in question is not "taboo" in any sense like the examples you've mentioned. In my opinion it's hardly taboo at all; it's just illegal. Second, putting something in a thesis is a kind of public declaration, but as publicity goes it is virtually guaranteed to have no effect. If the OP really wanted to help the cause, he could write a piece "In praise of illegal downloading" for the Chronicle or something like that. – Pete L. Clark Mar 20 '15 at 12:11
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    Acknowledging the website by name also leads to the possibility of the site being taken down, thus going against your goal. Acknowledging the site with no name is just a political statement and doesn't actually acknowledge anyone. – David K Mar 20 '15 at 12:22
  • @JamesRyan: It's worse. Any book he downloaded from an illegal website is a book that he didn't have legal access to. So the author of the book can demand that he remove anything that comes from that book from his thesis. It's like making a photocopy of an unpublished paper, perhaps one that the author didn't want to publish. – gnasher729 Mar 20 '15 at 13:38
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    @gnasher729: No, copyright does not work that way, at least not without a sufficiently narrow definition of "comes from". Moreover, everyone has "legal access" (not a relevant concept to citing a work anyway) to all of these via (possibly distant) libraries. It's just not convenient access. – R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE Mar 20 '15 at 14:32
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    @neuguy: I'm not convinced that it does need to be made there or that it's a good idea. I just think the assertion that there is no value in doing this is unwarranted. There are potential benefits to be weighed against the costs and the possible benefits of different approaches. – R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE Mar 20 '15 at 14:35
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    "Once you write that, you cannot unwrite it: it will be archived for the rest of your career." Does that apply to StackExchange questions where the OP has probably forgotten to use a fake name too?? – James Snell Mar 20 '15 at 15:29
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I had a similar problem in my ethics class but I approached it differently. My argument was that piracy forces legal content providers to provide better services. I’m not going to drill down on that as it’s a much bigger topic. Thanking piracy for illegal but freely available information isn’t ideal as it sounds like you're endorsing it. In a scholarly context, that’s not overtly wrong but it’s not ethical. Debating that with professor’s and/or ethics boards is radically different than here or with your peers.

Thanking piracy for forcing legal content providers to provide better services is better. That way you can structure arguments around what drives business change for the better. You can focus more on liking the end result without directly endorsing piracy. That might seem like dodging the issue a bit but I wasn’t comfortable directly thanking piracy in the context of my ethics class.

In the context of learning and freely available information, I think we’re all a little torn. I love the idea of all college level information being freely available to everyone but that’s not feasible. Someone has to put together that information. Someone has to help others understand that information. If actual books are being made there’s a production cost. Everything that goes into producing that information has a cost be it in time or money. It easy to think of free/piracy as a great idea but it’s usually sharing that end product that had a cost to produce, for free. If it was just shared for free no money would be made to cover the costs of producing that information. Why would anyone produce information if they lose time and money? They wouldn’t. Then there wouldn’t be that great information to pirate.

On the other hand, the legitimate cost of that information is very high. For a country with over a trillion in student loan debt, is more debt the right answer to get people trained and into the workforce?

Paraplastic2
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    "Why would anyone produce information if they lose time and money?"

    Because their interest in knowledge and free flow of information, progress, etc. is genuine? That is how I see it, at least, but well, I'm not the kind of person that gets incentive from monetary value, but achieving a goal I find valuable.

     – Ennar Mar 20 '15 at 13:24
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    It's a fine argument until you are at the receiving end of it. And I'd love to see any study that shows that "providing better services" is in any way stopping piracy. – gnasher729 Mar 20 '15 at 13:35
  • @Ennar I should clarify and maybe edit that. A lot of people produce open source material and it's awesome. But it's usually volunteering their time, meaning they have a different income source. In the context of teaching college, professors need to be available full time, coursework needs to be updated, plus production of those materials. That process can't be completely supported by volunteers. Coursera is different but interesting because it's free courses from major universities. Universities with their own income volunteering a piece that makes Cousera great. – Paraplastic2 Mar 20 '15 at 13:41
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    @gnasher729 Stopping piracy is impossible, reducing piracy is definitely possible. Think about buying music when it was locked up by DRM and you weren't allowed to listen to music you bought on your device because DRM wouldn't allow it. Pirated music could be listened to just fine. Later listening on devices was allowed and eventually streaming apps came in. Now people can pay, or not pay (Pandora and several others are free) to listen to music where-ever they want. Some people will always pirate, but most people are happy just listening on free/cheap services that are now available. – Paraplastic2 Mar 20 '15 at 13:49
  • @Paraplastic2 I do agree that there are materialistic costs to effectively spread information which someone needs to take care of, like production of (paper) books or costs of running an university. But, I do not think that scientific inquiry (search for knowledge) and spreading of discoveries are mostly stimulated by materialistic gains, but are rather goals in itself. – Ennar Mar 20 '15 at 13:57
  • @Ennar Agreed. The scientific inquiry (search for knowledge) and spreading of discoveries is motivated by curiosity ...and funded by someone/something else. I wish that there was a better/easier way to fund the search for knowledge and make all of that available for free but it's not that easy. – Paraplastic2 Mar 20 '15 at 14:11
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    @gnasher729: The evidence has been abundant for years and years. Spend some time browsing the archives of Techdirt, a news site that chronicles such matters (among several other things--you'll want to filter by relevant tags) and you'll find plenty of proof. – Mason Wheeler Mar 20 '15 at 14:56
  • @Ennar I assume you have enough to pay your bills before you put sense of achievement first though! – JamesRyan Mar 20 '15 at 15:11
  • @JamesRyan Sure I do. But I'm not sure what is your point exactly? Can I not simultaneously accept pay for actual work that I do and still pursue higher goals without monetary compensation? Or your point is that one needs to ensure one's own existence before satisfying idealistic goals? My point was that scientific discoveries are not always driven by desire to pay one's bills, but also by genuine curiosity and wish for the benefit of all, even at the cost of one's own time and resources. – Ennar Mar 20 '15 at 16:16
  • @Ennar my point was that those who haven't got their basic needs met yet don't have the luxury of giving some of it up for ultruistic motives. So it still has to make enough money even if there are other draws to it. – JamesRyan Mar 20 '15 at 16:31
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    @JamesRyan "those who haven't got their basic needs met yet don't have the luxury of giving some of it up for ultruistic motives"

    Surely there are counterexamples to that as well, but I won't try to make them. But, when you say:

    "So it still has to make enough money even if there are other draws to it."

    I fully disagree. Education and health care do not make money. They are investments in future. Just like spreading information in general should be treated, as well.

     – Ennar Mar 20 '15 at 16:39
  • @Ennar both of those do make/save money, just in the longer term – JamesRyan Mar 20 '15 at 17:38
  • @JamesRyan Of course they do. Hence the "They are investments in future". Any cause worth undertaking, no matter how idealistic seems in present, will make/save money in future. Science is example par excellence of that. But "making money" argument is actually ridiculous. Short term profit is cause of products of lesser and lesser quality being made, overexhausting our planets resources, stopping free exchange of information. People do not do great things for materialistic gains, but for idealistic ones. Only petty stuff needs money incentive. – Ennar Mar 20 '15 at 18:18
  • @gnasher729: does "providing better services" cut piracy? One anecdatum: since Springer made much more of their back catalogue easily downloadable for subscribed institutions, I have been going to dubious sites much less often, and I would support my university’s continued subscription significantly more than before (or at least, I would oppose it significantly less). – PLL Mar 21 '15 at 15:34
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    By the way, my alternative would not be to pay for the books. It would be to sit at the library all day instead of at a more convenient location and waste time looking through books physically instead of hitting Ctrl-F. – Yoni Rozenshein Mar 22 '15 at 05:29
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    @Ennar I don't know what country you're from, but in the USA many universities and hospitals make outrageous profit for a certain few. – Matt Samuel Mar 22 '15 at 15:41
  • @YoniRozenshein That's a good call and probably the best alternative. – Paraplastic2 Mar 23 '15 at 12:05
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    Why would anyone produce information if they lose time and money? Ironic that you are asking this on a website where people answer questions and contribute information for free, without any monetary incentive. – Federico Poloni Aug 21 '18 at 15:41
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As a counterpoint to the other answers, I'd say you should absolutely thank these websites. Why?

  • It takes minimal effort on your part. Some have suggested that instead you write an article praising illegal downloading. I hope you do that too, but adding a sentience to your acknowledgments is easier.
  • You shouldn't be worried about it hurting job prospects. There's a pretty good chance your next employer isn't going to read your thesis anyway. Actually, there's a pretty good chance no one will read the entire thing. Furthermore, I'd be wary of any employer who judges you based on your acknowledgments section---I'm sure they've seen weirder things there. Just keep your pontificating out of the rest of the thesis.
  • There's nothing wrong with supporting a cause. People who do read (parts of) your thesis will probably be impressionable young grad students. What you say is one more hint at how stupid our current system is when it comes to paywalls. Hopefully these new students will break the law just like you did, and that's great: there's nothing good about breaking the law for personal gain or just for the sake of disorder, but fighting for a cause (even if it's illegal) is half of what academia is about.

That being said, phrasing and tact are everything. Make it subtile and keep it focused on the cause and not the disobediance. Something like

"I'd like to thank those who have provided open access to otherwise prohibitively expensive material."

is better than

"A big shout-out to all the all the pirates out there! @#ck The Man!"

You're probably not going to get a lot of respect by sounding like an anarchist.

NOTE: I may have a biased point of view, given that I'm in a field where most researchers equate paywalls with extortion and all our most prestigious journals are free. If a subscription to the the top journal in your field costs thousands of dollars a year and your colleagues are OK with that, I'm not sure what to tell you.

Shep
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  • @PeteL.Clark, sorry, that was sort of a rude way to phrase it and a bit presumptive as well. I've edited it. Actually I hope the OP does write an article about it, but I acknowledge that some people are lazy / busy. – Shep Mar 23 '15 at 02:16
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    For our entry level positions, I can assure you that we do read dissertations. And writing something like this would be a sure way to get dropped off the list. – RoboKaren Mar 23 '15 at 02:52
  • @RoboKaren Good to know, but I guess it must depend on the field. – Shep Mar 23 '15 at 02:56
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    "I'm in a field where most researchers equate paywalls with extortion" <- You mean, the field of science :-) – einpoklum Feb 12 '22 at 22:14
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Since this move is politically risky, should you take the risk? Richard Hamming addresses the general point in the famous You and Your Research when he talks about ego assertion. The discussion is worth reading—let me quote just the following:

And I think John Tukey paid a terrible price needlessly. He was a genius anyhow, but I think it would have been far better, and far simpler, had he been willing to conform a little bit instead of ego asserting.

What was the ego assertion there? Funnily, it was just dressing casually instead of formally—these were the '50s.

Also, there are better ways to fight for the cause, like joining one of the movements for changing publication models—legally. (See open access, though that's mainly for papers). Any actual work in such a movement could even go (I guess) in your CV as community service.

Blaisorblade
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I think there are more cons than pros to writing this in your acknowledgement. To me it seems more like a written declaration claiming that you participated in some illegal activity. Many in the academic community write books which are pirated and they probably will not take it well if they read that in your PhD thesis. If you plan on pursuing a career in academia, these people will probably be a thorn in your side. Also, if you are in a graduate program where you submit a thesis before you defend it. Your defense committee may decide to give you a hard time during your defense (of course I understand that in some graduate programs you may not have any other exams left after you submit your thesis).

All I'm saying is that it may cause you much pain without contributing to your cause.

somerandomdude
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No its not okay to knowingly receive stolen property and thank the thieves. If the information provided in the reference was relative to your work, and you are receiving a degree because it helped you to so so, then thank the authors who created this work and took the time to write it down and get it published by buying their book. And next time please find a valid library and borrow a legal copy.

Kurt Sanger
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    My alternative would not be to pay for the books. It would be to sit at the library all day instead of at a more convenient location and waste time looking through books physically instead of hitting Ctrl-F. It's not customary to thank every author and buy their books every time you write a thesis so I don't see a reason to do this. By the way, my Books folder has 130 books (a few of those were legally obtained), and 31 of them are mentioned in my thesis bibliography. – Yoni Rozenshein Mar 22 '15 at 05:33
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    Not everything you read may be relevant to your research. But that still provides value as it may be telling you what doesn't work or apply and saves you the time of having to research those threads further. Or maybe there was an obscure reference that you followed which did pan out. Or maybe you're subconscious combined multiple innocuous concepts that helped to form your new idea. – Kurt Sanger Mar 22 '15 at 14:03
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    The right to private property is a fundamental principle of a free society. The extension of private property to ideas, thoughts, words, speech, and their exponential growth has created the world in which we live. All of the books, music, and movies in my library have been paid for. The price I've paid is an insignificant token of their true worth. I have bought and read many duds, but whose to say that even they have not contributed to the quality of my life and my own original ideas? – Kurt Sanger Mar 22 '15 at 14:17
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    Theft of fire is not actually a theft unless the one that took it extinguished the source afterwards. It's merely sharing. If someone wouldn't want one's ideas to be shared, why bother and write a book in the first place? – Ennar Mar 22 '15 at 18:28
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    Copyright violation is not theft, and pirated works are not stolen. You can't steal something if the person you've "stolen" it from still has it afterwards. Copyright violation may or may not be wrong, but it's not theft. – Mike Scott Mar 22 '15 at 18:41
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    @Mike Scott, sorry that argument is pure sophistry. We all have a right to earn a living from the work that we do. Copyright violation and pirated works are both theft; what is stolen is the royalties that were due to authors in fair exchange for their labour. – Dikran Marsupial Mar 23 '15 at 10:51
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    @DikranMarsupial No, you also can't steal something if the victim didn't have it before you "stole" it. It is an essential element of theft that the victim has it before the theft, and doesn't have it after the theft. Note that I'm not saying copyright violation is right, I'm just saying it's not theft, and if you want to show that it's wrong you have to argue about it as something in its own right, not just lazily saying "It's theft, so it must be wrong". – Mike Scott Mar 23 '15 at 11:02
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    @Mike Scott O.K. the authors control over the exploitation of their intellectual property has been stolen. They did have it before, they don't have it after (or at least less of it). The meanings of words change with time and usage. The idea of copyright violation and piracy being "theft" is well understood and quite a reasonable adoption during a period where the nature of intellectual property is still developing. It isn't wrong because it is theft, it is wrong because it is wrong; it is "theft" because that is the word that best expresses the nature of the activity. – Dikran Marsupial Mar 23 '15 at 11:12
  • note "piracy" isn't actually piracy as defined in the dictionary (it doesn't generally happen at sea) but everybody has become accustomed to the usage, to the extent that it is now in dictionaries. I'd say "theft" was a more reasonable word than "piracy". It has also long been a common idiom to say that someone has "stolen" an idea. It would be ridiculous to claim that we should stop using this phrase because it can't be stolen as the subject still has the idea! – Dikran Marsupial Mar 23 '15 at 11:17
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As a publisher and author I would be extremely annoyed that someone actively promotes those who commit the criminal offence of illegally copying and distributing our intellectual property.

First, I would refer to your university that your research was conducted using illegal obtained materials: that is undoubtedly in breach of your contract with the university and I would press for the cancellation of your degree. Harsh? Yes, but you are a criminal benefiting from the knowledge, expertise and labours of others.

Secondly, I would take steps to have the site removed from major search engines and references to it blocked. We routinely do that now, when we become aware of them. We refer the site hosts to the relevant authorities in the countries where they are hosted with a view to having the site taken down and the owners / operators prosecuted.

We would publicise the internet host and its IP range with a view to responsible site owners blocking that host's customers from accessing websites around the world.

And finally, we would publicise your name and that you were prepared to use criminally sourced material for your own advancement, demonstrating both a tendency to criminality and that you operate in a moral vacuum, in the hope that no employer would engage a person with such a lack of ethical values.

If the book you want is not legally available on-line, go to a proper library where publishers and authors are rewarded for loans. See if the book is available for lending for Kindle (you pay a small membership fee) because, again, publishers and authors are paid when you borrow.

Would you thank the photocopy shop that makes illegal copies of text books?

No, because you know it's a crime.

Annoyed Publisher and Author
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    You are writing on behalf of a publishing company anonymously? I don't understand that. Please have the courage of your convictions to identify yourself. I would certainly be interested to know which author and publisher is threatening to try to get people's degrees revoked. – Pete L. Clark Mar 23 '15 at 03:44
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    Am I a criminal for downloading a digital copy of a book I could have freely read at the library anyway? De jure, maybe (I am not convinced). In my moral point of view, definitely no. About reward for loans, I would be surprised if my library operates this way. My library has never heard of Kindle, and I don't have one (am I required to have one?). Finally, did you declare a witch hunt on me? Just because I am saying what everyone's doing? May I suggest to start with every grad student I know, and probably a few professors. – Yoni Rozenshein Mar 24 '15 at 09:41
  • Yoni, we do not get to decide what is or is not a criminal act, that is decided by the society in which you live via the system of law that it develops. Pointing out that you could have freely read the book at the library makes your position less tenable as you are admitting that you violated the rights of the author simply for your own convenience. I think the answer given above is rather hyperbolic (to say the least), but I think there is more than a little Rashomon effect going on here. – Dikran Marsupial Mar 24 '15 at 11:18
  • As a publisher, you must make all scientific research you publish available online, gratis, and in an easily searchable and accessible fashion. And if you won't do it, then it is the duty of others to do it. – einpoklum Feb 12 '22 at 22:12