Wasn't this, indirectly, the genesis for sci-hub? I couldn't afford to do any tech R&D without it.
On Sat, Nov 9, 2019, 4:37 AM grarpamp <grarp...@gmail.com> wrote: > Guerilla Open Access Manifesto > > Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to > keep it for > themselves. The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, > published over centuries > in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up > by a handful of > private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most > famous results of the > sciences? You'll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed > Elsevier. > > There are those struggling to change this. The Open Access Movement has > fought > valiantly to ensure that scientists do not sign their copyrights away > but instead ensure > their work is published on the Internet, under terms that allow anyone > to access it. But > even under the best scenarios, their work will only apply to things > published in the future. > Everything up until now will have been lost. > > That is too high a price to pay. Forcing academics to pay money to > read the work of their > colleagues? Scanning entire libraries but only allowing the folks at > Google to read them? > Providing scientific articles to those at elite universities in the > First World, but not to > children in the Global South? It's outrageous and unacceptable. > > "I agree," many say, "but what can we do? The companies hold the > copyrights, they > make enormous amounts of money by charging for access, and it's > perfectly legal — > there's nothing we can do to stop them." But there is something we > can, something that's > already being done: we can fight back. > > Those with access to these resources — students, librarians, > scientists — you have been > given a privilege. You get to feed at this banquet of knowledge while > the rest of the world > is locked out. But you need not — indeed, morally, you cannot — keep > this privilege for > yourselves. You have a duty to share it with the world. And you have: > trading passwords > with colleagues, filling download requests for friends. > > > > Meanwhile, those who have been locked out are not standing idly by. > You have been > sneaking through holes and climbing over fences, liberating the > information locked up by > the publishers and sharing them with your friends. > > But all of this action goes on in the dark, hidden underground. It's > called stealing or > piracy, as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were the moral equivalent > of plundering a > ship and murdering its crew. But sharing isn't immoral — it's a moral > imperative. Only > those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy. > > Large corporations, of course, are blinded by greed. The laws under > which they operate > require it — their shareholders would revolt at anything less. And the > politicians they > have bought off back them, passing laws giving them the exclusive > power to decide who > can make copies. > > There is no justice in following unjust laws. It's time to come into > the light and, in the > grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this > private theft of public > culture. > > We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies > and share them with > the world. We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to > the archive. We need > to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download > scientific > journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight > for Guerilla Open > Access. > > With enough of us, around the world, we'll not just send a strong > message opposing the > privatization of knowledge — we'll make it a thing of the past. Will > you join us? > > Aaron Swartz > > July 2008, Eremo, Italy > > https://openlibrary.org/ >