Upgrade StorageDownloads and copyright questions
A colleague recently had a professor ask if Zotero had the capability to download multiple citations at once...and by multiple, they meant 15,000 from a single database. Of course, this made our eyebrows raise. I know that Zotero can download a few items at a time from search results, but is there a max number of citations (with or without PDFs) that can be loaded at one time?
Also, is there any documentation from Zotero that addresses using the software in ways that would be in violation of, or come close to violating, copyright laws?
Also, is there any documentation from Zotero that addresses using the software in ways that would be in violation of, or come close to violating, copyright laws?
Some practical notes:
Technically, Zotero can be used to mass-import data -- that's especially the case if you're not actually downloading PDFs but 'just' metadata. You typically shouldn't use the browser connector in that case, but rely on a database's export function -- most commonly to RIS, but Zotero also recognizes a bunch of other formats. Many databases, including Scopus, Pubmed, Webofscience, OpenAlex, Dimensions facilitate such export and I've used them for 1000s of items at a time.
Mass-downloading actual papers you have access to is also not a copyright violation (providing access to downloaded PDFs likely would be), but for almost all databases it _is_ a violation of the terms of service and would likely get your institution's access temporarily blocked by the vendor. Details on how that's implemented will vary.
Note that many vendors do have specific programs for access for data mining or other programmatic use of their data -- you'd want to ask about those: they'll be faster and, obviously, wont' get you into hot water with the vendor.