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A collaborator has asked me to share a PDF of a pay-walled article with her. She can't access the article because it's pay-walled (though her institution should be wealthy enough to provide access).

Whereas I don't have any ethical qualms about such a request, I do have legal qualms, since sharing such article would provide evidence by which the publisher might potentially sue me for copyright infringement.

So I'd rather not do that. What are possibilities do deny that request while saving face?

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    Why not use the same reason "sharing such article would provide evidence by which the publisher might potentially sue me for copyright infringement"?
    – GEdgar
    Nov 26, 2021 at 11:13
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    "the publisher might potentially sue me for copyright infringement." My advice would be to check whether this indeed is the case. It's a common and accepted practice that papers are shared between researchers. A different story would be if any of you made the paper available publicly, on a website such as SciHub. Nov 26, 2021 at 11:14
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    Simply tell your colleague, that in order for you to send the paper, she must promise not to share the paper with anyone else, and especially not to upload it to public internet sites, because the pdf you downloaded will probably be watermarked. You should not worry about getting a lawsuit, the chances of that happening are ridiculously low. Of course, if you have little trust that your colleague will keep the promise, that's another story....
    – djohn
    Nov 26, 2021 at 11:28
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    You can also refer your friend to internet sites or social media groups which are less concerned with the ethical issue. Nevertheless, sending papers is standard practice and it might even not be illegal if you two, e.g., collaborate on a research project or similar.
    – mihalu
    Nov 26, 2021 at 11:48
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    @Buffy: I do not find sharing or illegally downloading academic papers unethical at all. I am a great supporter of open science and I find paywalls deeply problematic; so I think it is completely ethical to illegally download papers, especially in situations where your institution can not afford to buy them. My solution was meant to answer Ambicion's concern that he might be faced with legal consequences (which is highly unlikely anyway). If you are interested in the issue, I can recommend some good research literature on the topic.
    – mihalu
    Nov 26, 2021 at 13:50

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The following is not a legal analysis (IANAL), but a social/academic one. The problem, as I'm sure you recognize, is that passing on an electronic version makes it all too easy for it to be widely distributed by the recipient. Hopefully you can trust them to honor a request not to pass it farther. Hopefully, they will comply with such a request.

If you want to be absolutely sure that you are staying within all bounds, make a printed copy of the document and send that, along with a request to have it returned to you when your colleague is finished with it, however long that might be. In a working group that has always been done and is certainly covered under fair use for scholarly work. This is probably more than is really necessary, but it is conservative enough that no publisher should object. That is especially true if this paper is important to your collaboration.

But you almost certainly have a right to make a printed copy and you almost certainly have a right to share it. Hopefully your colleague won't make and distribute a can of the document, but that is on them in any case.

Sharing such a document with a colleague isn't "publishing", and while it might reduce the economic value of the publication to a minor (minuscule) extent, a publisher would only be likely to object to it if they were willing to spend money to "make an example" of someone. And likely it would only occur if the person sued had deep enough pockets or if the problem became extreme in some way.

And publishers need to be able to support scholarly work if the next work they hope to publish is to ever be created. The recognize this, actually, and benefit from it.

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