For those interested, Cushing's site is docspopuli.org (one i) -- he misspells it in his sig -- I suspect that's not an attempt to withhold his work from the public! ;)
SN On Wed, Jan 23, 2013 at 7:55 AM, Eugen Leitl <[email protected]> wrote: > ----- Forwarded message from Lincoln Cushing <[email protected]> ----- > > From: Lincoln Cushing <[email protected]> > Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 21:04:03 -0800 > To: [email protected] > Subject: <nettime> Response to "Academe Is Complicit" essay > > Nettime colleagues: > > I was forwarded Timothy Burke's provocative piece through the > Progressive Librarians Guild (I've been a member for over ten years). > I'm replying with an adaptation of something I wrote following > another essay examining Aaron Swartz's death. While Mr. Swartz's > death was tragic, his persecution by the US Attorney General's office > heavyhanded, and many of the information liberation positions he > espoused noble, I was struck by the criticism in Burke's essay leveled > at JSTOR. > > JSTOR has become a veritable punching bag of the "Free Culture > Movement." Noted professor Larry Lessig takes a whack at them in > his video lecture appropriately titled "What's wrong with JSTOR": > <http://www.uomatters.com/2011/07/larry-lessig-on-whats-wrong-with-jst > or.html> > > In it, he bushwhacks a scholar for explaining her empty office > bookshelves by saying that "Everything I needed is on the Internet > now." Lessig's meanspirited point was that from the academic's > perspective - namely working at an institution with well-endowed > electronic journal site licenses - she was both privileged and > correct. Alas, for the rest of us poor slobs in the real world her > statement isn't true. Evil content aggregators like JSTOR have gobbled > up all the good stuff. > > But wait - Lessig's argument only works within the narrow definition > of online access. > > I'm certainly no fan of JSTOR. I, like all of you, have stumbled > across tasty citations to works on Google, only to be zapped with the > unwelcome news that I'd have to pay to see it. But JSTOR does provide > a service. Their arrangements are not exclusive. You want to go to > your local university library and scan an article from 1975? Go ahead, > the free JSTOR citation tells you exactly what to look for. Sure, the > original research may well have been paid for by public funds, but > that does not mean that somehow it should magically appear for free on > the Web. There are real costs to doing this work, and unless The State > is willing to do it (and I would argue they should), corporations will > step in. Public domain does not mean free access, just the potential > for it. > > I'm sure there are other aspects of JSTOR that are problematic > (apparently their executives each made over $250,000 in 2009, but > I'm not paying their salary). I am hopeful that examinations of the > circumstances surrounding the Swartz tragedy can lead to discussing > and developing a clearer analysis of the real problems facing our > field. For example, I see the insidious expansion of photo aggregators > like Corbis and Getty One being much more dangerous than JSTOR. Those > folks are truly buying up our culture, and it scares me. Burke raises > the complicity of academe in the privatization of knowledge. I ask - > what have any of us actually done to make information available to the > public? > > Much of my own work as an activist archivist involves digitization > of analog content and sharing it with the world. I shoot posters, > which is not easy, and I've built and paid for a custom studio for > doing that. I've helped mount thousands of social justice poster > images on the Web. But I don't post high-resolution images. I, and > the institutions I work with, feel that those images deserve some > protection from corporate appropriation without compensation. Thanks > you, Creative Commons. By withholding free access to the ultimate > goody, the 60 megabyte image file, am I a traitor to the "Free Culture > Movement"? I certainly hope not. > > Yours for democratic knowledge, > > Lincoln Cushing > www.docspopuii.org > Documents for the Public > > > > # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission > # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l > # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected] > > ----- End forwarded message ----- > -- > Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org";>leitl</a> http://leitl.org > ______________________________________________________________ > ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org > 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE > -- > Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password at: > https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech > -- Shava Nerad [email protected]
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