Is it ethical to obtain journal articles from places other than the publisher's official sites?

Question

When I am at home and looking for journal articles I often find article PDFs through google that have been uploaded to various websites (e.g., universities, institutions, arbitrary websites, etc...).

I am worried that using these files may infringe copyright since these articles may be bought by these universities (for example) and (by mistake?) were freely uploaded to their domain name like: www.university.edu.lb/journal_article1.pdf (probably for their own students?).

• Is it ethical to use these downloaded PDFs during my research without going back to my own university elibrary to use them?
• When, if ever, would I be breaching copyright or breaching professional ethics if I accessed these files?

EDIT: my question also covers books as, sometimes, these are entirely available on some sites (whether they are institutional sites or not).

Answer 1

Yes, it is absolutely ethical to use these files during your research. Many publishers allow academic authors to upload a so-called "preprint" version of a paper to their own institutional websites or put them in repositories, and of course these can be used by others in research.

There's maybe just two minor things to be careful about:

1. You should try to verify that the preprint version is mostly up to date with the published version, comparing e.g. publication dates.
2. It is common practice to put the "official" publication source, i.e., the journal version, into your reference list. Nevertheless, if you can't make sure that the versions are equivalent regarding what you're citing them for, it may be necessary to state that you were using a preprint version.

In some cases, authors may put papers online even though it's technically a breach of copyright. But since you don't know the author's agreement with the publisher, you have no way of checking that, and in any case, it would be the author or institution that violates copyright, but not you.

Answer 2

I wanted to chip in on this one. Where I live and do research, we have intermittent access to literature. For instance, right now, and probably until April this year, we don't have. Nonetheless, to exist as a scientist, one must have access to literature. So, I do everything in my power to get papers even though it's not "ethical" from the point of view of publishers.

I do not feel guilty about this, because my research is supposed to be done for the people, not for myself. If I get a good result that leads to some new technology, everyone, including the publishers, will benefit from it. Besides, it is about survival in research. Without constant access to literature, I could just as well close the shop and buy a mop for my new career.

Answer 3

I mostly agree with silvado's answer but want to emphasize a couple of different things.

1. It is ethical to look at freely available pre/e-prints, if they are permitted by the publisher. They often are, and often are not, but it is not your responsibility to check. However, you should cite published versions, which means you should look at published versions to make sure they contain what you want and section/page/etc numbered references are correct. At most universities, you can get access to the university e-library from home by logging in.
2. Many libraries (including mine) monitor how often journals are electronically accessed through the library subscription, and use this to determine the value of this journal subscription. Journals with less perceived value (from the library's point of view) may get cut to account for rising costs of other publications and/or budget cuts. So it can be beneficial for both the journal and the university for you to make the effort to download the article through the library subscription.

Answer 4

One thing not mentioned in the answers written so far: in some fields, including applied mathematics, many leading journals now allow the author to put the final typeset article on his/her website. This is exactly the same version provided by the journal. For instance, all SIAM and AMS journals now allow this. So in this case there is no concern about copyright for either you or the author, and no need to worry about whether the version is "up-to-date".

I make almost all my papers available in this way.

Answer 5

I am a researcher in mathematics who published over 60 articles. In almost all cases, the publisher left me no option other than to transfer all my copyrights to them, for my own work. Is it ethical?

I write articles in order to be read by other researchers. The last thing I need is to prevent them from doing it. If my articles are placed behind a paywall or hidden from the reader in any other way, it is definitely not in my interest, as the author. And even if someone purchases my article, I won't see a cent from that money. Is that ethical?

You would think that we have some choice, but now we are in 2017 and there is only 1 (!) broad interest journal in mathematics I could find of some quality caliber, that is completely free and open for both authors and publishers. I mean, no embargo, no author processing charges, no subscription charges.

And yes, there is Arxiv.org that is truly free for its users. But that does not replace a publication and is not counted as such. It is not peer reviewed and can be changed or withdrawn. Sometimes the version there is final, sometimes not. Sometimes people post there, sometimes not, for various reasons. And finally, you still have to cite the actual article, not the one posted to the arxiv, so you still somehow need to make sure what you cite is actually there.

Answer 6

I would like to point to http://www.sciencealert.com/this-woman-has-illegally-uploaded-millions-of-journal-articles-in-an-attempt-to-open-up-science and http://bigthink.com/neurobonkers/a-pirate-bay-for-science and the sequel to that.

where it is argued that yes, this is morally perfectly fine.

Quote from the second link:

In her letter to Sweet, Elbakyan made a point that will likely come as a shock to many outside the academic community: Researchers and universities don’t earn a single penny from the fees charged by publishers such as Elsevier for accepting their work, while Elsevier has an annual income over a billion U.S. dollars. Elbakyan explains: “I would also like to mention that Elsevier is not a creator of these papers. All papers on their website are written by researchers, and researchers do not receive money from what Elsevier collects. That is very different from the music or movie industry, where creators receive money from each copy sold. But the economics of research papers is very different. Authors of these papers do not receive money. Why would they send their work to Elsevier then? They feel pressured to do this, because Elsevier is an owner of so-called "high-impact” journals. If a researcher wants to be recognized, make a career — he or she needs to have publications in such journals.”

This is the Catch-22. Why would any self-respecting researcher willingly hand over, for nothing, the copyright to their hard work to an organization that will profit from the work by making the keys prohibitively expensive to the few people who want to read it? The answer is ultimately all to do with career prospects and prestige. Researchers are rewarded in jobs and promotions for publishing in high-ranking journals such as Nature.