tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (asking for an article/materials)

Ilya Nikokoshev comments on "asking for an article/materials" (580)

2009-11-21T16:59:23-08:00

@ex-falso-quodlibet: I have this problem myself, so I feel for you.

there seems to be great 'sharing potential' across this community for materials others may not be in position to acquire and thus great practical interest for mathematicians world-wide.

However, I don't think Math Overflow should be known as the place with this 'sharing potential'. First, this would fit other forums better. Second, typical institutional library's Terms of Use say something about not sharing the pdfs, so the question would be asking people to break their library's rules even when no copyright law is at stake. Third, yes, copyright law.

David Speyer comments on "asking for an article/materials" (579)

2009-11-21T16:57:10-08:00

I won't comment on what is legal, because I am not a lawyer and not all our users are in the US. But, in terms of internet norms, I think there is a difference between two scenarios.

(1) User A: My school doesn't subscribe to The Rocky Mountain Journal of Knot Theory. Could someone scan in Smith's recent article and send it to me?

User B: Here you go.

(2) User A: Does anyone have a reference for the connection between the Jones polynomial and untangling climbing ropes?

User B: Smith explained this very well in The Rocky Mountain Journal of Knot Theory. See this link.

I don't like scenario (1) for two reasons. The first is that it feels sketchy to me, although I understand that it is controversial whether or not it is illegal for us to host it. The second is that it is of very little benefit to the rest of us reading it.

I think that we should ignore scenario (2), even if the link is to a copyright violation.

I should probably acknowledge here that I am not a moderator, so this is just one guy's opinion, not official math.MO policy.

Scott Morrison comments on "asking for an article/materials" (578)

2009-11-21T13:47:27-08:00

I think we should ignore any such putative issue. I strongly disagree that telling someone a URL to copyrighted material is in any way illegal. That said, I don't understand how this could usefully work on mathoverflow, without potentially being inundated. I'd discourage this practice, or at least add as a requirement giving some background on the paper.

Andrew Stacey comments on "asking for an article/materials" (576)

2009-11-21T08:58:18-08:00

There's a fine line legally here. Enabling people to get around copyright is, I understand, illegal. So asking for a copy of a paper might be technically breaking the law.

I would advise emailing the authors.

David Zureick-Brown comments on "asking for an article/materials" (573)

2009-11-21T00:04:10-08:00

An alternative is to email the authors of the paper. This is has been entirely successful for me for papers that are not electronically available (but also recent enough that the authors have a pdf of the paper).

ex-falso-quodlibet comments on "asking for an article/materials" (572)

2009-11-20T21:31:44-08:00

Hi,
I would like to ask if it is acceptable on Math Overflow to ask for a specific paper one does not have (any institutional) access to. I understand that such a request would be of little theoretical interest for other mathematicians. However, considering the number of participants, there seems to be great 'sharing potential' across this community for materials others may not be in position to acquire and thus great *practical* interest for mathematicians world-wide.

Thanks in advance for your attention,

efq