A university press asked me to review a book manuscript, and the author “has asked that we not use electronic copies.” So they’re going to send me a hard copy.
My response: “If you only give me a paper copy, I’m going to just scan it and toss the paper. That seems like a waste of time (and paper and postage).”
I should probably have said, “Then forget it.”
Their response included, “What you do with it when it arrives I am just going to take a hear-no-evil approach to.”
Tags: peer review, stupid
The stupidest thing... 
8 Mar 2013 at 7:47 pm
“What you do with it when it arrives I am just going to take a hear-no-evil approach to.”
Sounds to me like an open invitation to scan it and upload it to every filesharing site this side of Antarctica.
8 Mar 2013 at 7:59 pm
Brilliant!
17 Mar 2013 at 10:06 am
Karl:
Call me a polluter, but I don’t like to send around electronic copies, especially of preliminary versions of a book. I really really don’t want incomplete and uncorrected copies of my new books floating around on the web.
17 Mar 2013 at 12:39 pm
I wouldn’t think that reviewers would be a very common source of piracy. And anyway, I’ve scanned the manuscript and could now send it floating off just as easily as if the publisher had provided me with a PDF.
14 Feb 2014 at 11:42 am
Awesome post.