Guerilla Open Access
A few months ago I got to attend a meeting in Eremo, Italy, a beautiful abandoned monastery deep into the European countryside. There, talking with others round the world, I realized that the Open Access movement simply wasn’t enough — even if we got all journals going forward to be open, the whole history of scientific knowledge would be locked up. We had to do something more.
Talking with others at the meeting, I realized what must be done. If we couldn’t get free access to this knowledge, folks would have to take it. Guerilla open access. So I wrote up a manifesto:
“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.
I’m announcing the project in a talk today at Software Freedom Day in Boston, but I’m also announcing it here:
Visit guerillaopenaccess.com and join us.
September 20, 2008
You are either very smart or very stupid (in what you are doing here). It will be fascinating to find out which.
posted by Seth Finkelstein
on September 21, 2008 #
Fantastic Aaron, a great initiative. While we disagree on some matters, I think we hold very similar views on copyright and the steps required. Into the fray…
posted by Callum
on September 21, 2008 #
great, possible add-on to the GOA manifesto: Publishing transcripts of scientific articles under oa licences is a legal way to free access to knowledge. afaik nobody can stop you doing that, and each article only needs to be transcripted once…
posted by Patrick
on September 21, 2008 #
Sorry, transcription is teh wrong word, I meant paraphrase: Keep the meaning but use different words.
posted by Patrick
on September 22, 2008 #
Aaron, I hope you have taken some legal precautions to make sure that your financial assets are safely firewalled from the inevitable lawsuits that will come your way once the site starts making content available.
Keep up the great work!
posted by Calvin
on September 22, 2008 #
Scribd works also
posted by Kevin
on September 24, 2008 #
Blanks and Postage (B&P) is a great idea from the 90s that would fit in very well here. Once used for music sharing, guerilla fixed-media may well be the salvation when it comes to the free distribution of book knowledge.
My fear is this era might be the good old days of free access— what’s to stop the eventual privatization (or profitization) of the Internet Archive, or Gutenberg, or Google Books? They won’t always be run by good people, will they?— especially once libraries get rid of their hard copies of books.
The temptation to eventually monetize these now-free collections of data will be too much to resist. It’s inevitable.
posted by Jim
on October 6, 2008 #
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Comments
You are either very smart or very stupid (in what you are doing here). It will be fascinating to find out which.
posted by Seth Finkelstein on September 21, 2008 #
Fantastic Aaron, a great initiative. While we disagree on some matters, I think we hold very similar views on copyright and the steps required. Into the fray…
posted by Callum on September 21, 2008 #
great, possible add-on to the GOA manifesto: Publishing transcripts of scientific articles under oa licences is a legal way to free access to knowledge. afaik nobody can stop you doing that, and each article only needs to be transcripted once…
posted by Patrick on September 21, 2008 #
Sorry, transcription is teh wrong word, I meant paraphrase: Keep the meaning but use different words.
posted by Patrick on September 22, 2008 #
Aaron, I hope you have taken some legal precautions to make sure that your financial assets are safely firewalled from the inevitable lawsuits that will come your way once the site starts making content available.
Keep up the great work!
posted by Calvin on September 22, 2008 #
Scribd works also
posted by Kevin on September 24, 2008 #
Blanks and Postage (B&P) is a great idea from the 90s that would fit in very well here. Once used for music sharing, guerilla fixed-media may well be the salvation when it comes to the free distribution of book knowledge.
My fear is this era might be the good old days of free access— what’s to stop the eventual privatization (or profitization) of the Internet Archive, or Gutenberg, or Google Books? They won’t always be run by good people, will they?— especially once libraries get rid of their hard copies of books.
The temptation to eventually monetize these now-free collections of data will be too much to resist. It’s inevitable.
posted by Jim on October 6, 2008 #
You can also send comments by email.