• givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    The asking makes it legal if I recall correctly.

    They can’t host a site with all their articles/papers/research, but if anyone asks for a single copy, they can provide it at their discretion.

    And since they don’t make any money either way, most provide it and are happy to do so.

    • mumblerfish@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      You mean asking the publisher?

      When you publish an academic paper, the journal/publisher makes you sign a transfer-of-copyright-thing. For example, that meant I could not publish my own papers as a part of my thesis. I had to ask the journals for permission to do that. Depending on how that transfer-agreement is formulated (and I imagine every publisher have a different one), an author giving away a paper they authored to someone on twitter or wherever may not be allowed. Only if you’d ask the publisher and get an ok.

      • emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        It depends. Some publishers ask the authors to transfer copyright. Others don’t. Even for the ones that do, the pre-print still belongs to the authors.

    • General_Effort@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Not generally. There may be fair use exceptions allowing the sharing in some situations (depending on jurisdiction) or the publisher/owner may allow it as part of the licensing contract. But I don’t know in what jurisdiction/under what contract, it would be legal to copy something just because some random person asked.