Now, the US government alleges that Swartz intended to release his academic paper stash for free on file-sharing websites. This may be true, but he did not do so. Shortly after his arrest, however, a posting appeared on the Pirate Bay website, declaring the release of 33 gigabytes of academic papers from the UK journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, free for download. This file, explained the poster, was an act of protest about Swartz's arrest. The papers range from the 17th century up to 1923, and are mostly out of copyright.

These are, in some respects, remarkable tales of Robin Hood behaviour. JSTOR expended huge effort scanning these Royal Society papers in the 90s, when scanning was tougher, and they should be thanked. But it's hard to believe we can't find a better way to do so: JSTOR sells each paper for between $8 (£5) and $19 (£11.70), while the Royal Society estimates that the pay-per-view income from the public accessing them is half a percent of their journal income.

One major problem with the current publishing model is that it's hard to give access for free to the motivated public, while still gathering income from institutions. My hunch is, at some stage, this problem may be partially sidestepped, when someone manages an illegal workaround that individuals can play with, but which no university could endorse. I may be wrong: but either way, these are very interesting times for information.

Everyone claims to agree that people should be encouraged to understand science and other academic research. Without current knowledge, we cannot make coherent democratic decisions. But the publishers have slapped a padlock and a "keep out" sign on the gates.

You might resent Murdoch's paywall policy, in which he charges £1 for 24 hours of access to the Times and Sunday Times. But at least in that period you can read and download as many articles as you like. Reading a single article published by one of Elsevier's journals will cost you $31.50. Springer charges €34.95, Wiley-Blackwell, $42. Read 10 and you pay 10 times. And the journals retain perpetual copyright. You want to read a letter printed in 1981? That'll be $31.50.

Of course, you could go into the library (if it still exists). But they too have been hit by cosmic fees. The average cost of an annual subscription to a chemistry journal is $3,792. Some journals cost $10,000 a year or more to stock. The most expensive I've seen, Elsevier's Biochimica et Biophysica Acta, is $20,930. Though academic libraries have been frantically cutting subscriptions to make ends meet, journals now consume 65% of their budgets, which means they have had to reduce the number of books they buy. Journal fees account for a significant component of universities' costs, which are being passed to their students.
...
The publishers claim that they have to charge these fees as a result of the costs of production and distribution, and that they add value (in Springer's words) because they "develop journal brands and maintain and improve the digital infrastructure which has revolutionised scientific communication in the past 15 years". But an analysis by Deutsche Bank reaches different conclusions. "We believe the publisher adds relatively little value to the publishing process … if the process really were as complex, costly and value-added as the publishers protest that it is, 40% margins wouldn't be available." Far from assisting the dissemination of research, the big publishers impede it, as their long turnaround times can delay the release of findings by a year or more.

Doll Is Mine wrote:Al Sharpton just bitchslapped a little whiny white dude who thought he could get away with claiming that MLK would support "Gun Appreciation Day".

td11 wrote:The Truth about Aaron Swartz’s “Crime”

The Dude wrote:

td11 wrote:The Truth about Aaron Swartz’s “Crime”

the only thing i don't get is that it's not up to MIT to decide if they can freely give away the JSTOR articles. A major defense was that MIT freely admits to having a very open network that allows for people to exploit. Does JSTOR know that giving MIT users access gives the world access? That's the only point that I'm stuck on

pacino wrote::spam2:

Doll Is Mine wrote:Al Sharpton just bitchslapped a little whiny white dude who thought he could get away with claiming that MLK would support "Gun Appreciation Day".

i just cant get past al sharpton trying to read a teleprompter and him admitting he wont criticize the president. maddow, chris hayes, melissa harris perry is all i can stomach on msnbc. when they got rid of Cenk for Sharpton, I had a sad.

drsmooth wrote:

The Dude wrote:

td11 wrote:The Truth about Aaron Swartz’s “Crime”

the only thing i don't get is that it's not up to MIT to decide if they can freely give away the JSTOR articles. A major defense was that MIT freely admits to having a very open network that allows for people to exploit. Does JSTOR know that giving MIT users access gives the world access? That's the only point that I'm stuck on

JSTOR almost certainly is not auditing every institutional client's adherence to whatever standards it imposes. That is, it is behaving as practically every institution does with respect to policies that come along with whatever they are selling, particularly with respect to non-rivalrous wares (stuff that if you get some, doesn't prevent me from getting basically the same "some").

So in principle JSTOR probably has a beef with MIT. In practice it probably isn't in the habit of rigorously enforcing its principles. Whether it does or doesn't with MIT would likely be a matter of negotiation.

jerseyhoya wrote:Obama won Suffolk County by 3.4% and Nassau County by 7.6%, and the GOP holds all 9 state senate seats there. Ancestrally GOP and on state issues makes sense that they'd differentiate themselves from the city, but that's still something.

The Dude wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

The Dude wrote:

td11 wrote:The Truth about Aaron Swartz’s “Crime”

the only thing i don't get is that it's not up to MIT to decide if they can freely give away the JSTOR articles. A major defense was that MIT freely admits to having a very open network that allows for people to exploit. Does JSTOR know that giving MIT users access gives the world access? That's the only point that I'm stuck on

JSTOR almost certainly is not auditing every institutional client's adherence to whatever standards it imposes. That is, it is behaving as practically every institution does with respect to policies that come along with whatever they are selling, particularly with respect to non-rivalrous wares (stuff that if you get some, doesn't prevent me from getting basically the same "some").

So in principle JSTOR probably has a beef with MIT. In practice it probably isn't in the habit of rigorously enforcing its principles. Whether it does or doesn't with MIT would likely be a matter of negotiation.

They're selling library lucenses, its not that complicated

drsmooth wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:Obama won Suffolk County by 3.4% and Nassau County by 7.6%, and the GOP holds all 9 state senate seats there. Ancestrally GOP and on state issues makes sense that they'd differentiate themselves from the city, but that's still something.

It may be something, but it's not anything to do with Obama

now if spineless Tom Libous voted in favor of the legislation, now that would be new (but still not about Obama)

/guywhoworkedforNYSenateeonsagowhenitwasjustaboutthesame

drsmooth wrote:

The Dude wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

The Dude wrote:

td11 wrote:The Truth about Aaron Swartz’s “Crime”

the only thing i don't get is that it's not up to MIT to decide if they can freely give away the JSTOR articles. A major defense was that MIT freely admits to having a very open network that allows for people to exploit. Does JSTOR know that giving MIT users access gives the world access? That's the only point that I'm stuck on

JSTOR almost certainly is not auditing every institutional client's adherence to whatever standards it imposes. That is, it is behaving as practically every institution does with respect to policies that come along with whatever they are selling, particularly with respect to non-rivalrous wares (stuff that if you get some, doesn't prevent me from getting basically the same "some").

So in principle JSTOR probably has a beef with MIT. In practice it probably isn't in the habit of rigorously enforcing its principles. Whether it does or doesn't with MIT would likely be a matter of negotiation.

They're selling library lucenses, its not that complicated

Usage tracking of anything is always complicated

just because you don't know that doesn't make it otherwise

The Dude wrote:

td11 wrote:The Truth about Aaron Swartz’s “Crime”

the only thing i don't get is that it's not up to MIT to decide if they can freely give away the JSTOR articles. A major defense was that MIT freely admits to having a very open network that allows for people to exploit. Does JSTOR know that giving MIT users access gives the world access? That's the only point that I'm stuck on

Early on, and to its great credit, JSTOR figured “appropriate” out: They declined to pursue their own action against Aaron, and they asked the government to drop its. MIT, to its great shame, was not as clear, and so the prosecutor had the excuse he needed to continue his war against the “criminal” who we who loved him knew as Aaron.

The Dude wrote:understood, but is it up to them, too? They're providing content from Journals, not material they produced, so I wasn't sure if they were the ultimate say. A company that has a license to sell my company's ebooks wouldn't be the final say if my books started popping up on sites illegally. I'm just curious about the licensing agreement