Robbing the JSTOR: Theft or Activism?
by Adam Robbert
HT Kluth Von Reuter. Some very interesting developments going on in the hacking/file sharing world. Below, a quote from the THIS article, with some added commentary from THIS one.
Aaron Swartz, a Cambridge web entrepreneur and political activist who has lobbied for the free flow of information on the Internet, was charged in federal court with hacking into a subscription-based archive system at MIT and stealing more than 4 million articles, including scientific and academic journals.
This is definitely a debate worth having: how do we wager the necessity of free access to information against the need to keep the publishing industry alive? Clearly, print media is in a whole lot of trouble, with the only solution presenting itself seeming to be a migration of print to a totally electronic world of online, open access media. I say total migration, but I suspect myself and other will always buy books- reading a large volume online is still tedious and difficult in many ways- we need better systems of electronic interface! Despite my love for printed books, this migration seems inevitable, even favorable, since the media ecology of online research is leaps and bounds more democratic and accessible than the traditional journal formats of old.
Of course this is a double edged sword, especially for academics (myself included). I am not at all sure what the economics involved in the situation are, but I assume that running a large scale, reputable academic journal requires quite a lot of money, time, and resources- hence the upwards of $50,000 annual subscription fees universities pay for access to journals. I routinely find myself searching for topics online, only to be met with a $30-a- piece fee for downloading the relavent articles my searches return (this seems like an unreasonable price to pay for 20 pages of material). Fortunately, I live in the bay area and have access to not just my own schools academic resources, but basically all the multitude of Bay Area campuses nearby, and, subsequently, all of their journal access. UC Berkeley, for example, is only a 30 minute BART ride from my house in SF, and once one is on campus the computers give you access to view and download the entire UC Berkeley pantheon of journals and academic search engine (thanks UC!)
So, for me, there are other ways around the issue of cost and access. But what about non-academics? What about freelance professionals, researchers, cultural creatives, and activists? We are heading for an open information society- whether the powers at be want it or not. I think Wikileaks and the like are just the beginning. Indeed, I get the sense that many in the recent rash of hacking incidents are being carried out by 19 year olds and 20 somethings who seem to be able to run circles around the security systems put in place by major institutions. The individual in the above mentioned article attempted to steal 4 million academic journal articles- with the intention of releasing them on peer-to-peer file sharing networks, thus making them accessible to anyone with online access. Needless to say, this is not the first or last attempt at this type of activity we are going to see.
So, print media is being swallowed by online media, blogging is becoming a major avenue for the articulation of theory and debate, journal articles are being swiped by the millions and will be distributed to the masses- how is this going to shape our work in the future? Of course, non of this will replace the need for the academy. Even with that many journal articles available the average person will still need the training, context, and interaction with professors and other students to be able to put the information to use (though I am sure there are a few exceptions to this- genius is not limited to the academy). But what then must these institutions begin to look like? What are the necessary media ecologies that must be constructed in order to facilitate these changes in a way that is sustainable?
Somehow we need to let the development of these online media ecologies flow back into the infrastructure and ecology of our cities, towns, and institutions. Surely the academy, the research industry, and the independent creative, activist, or theorist must change based on these circumstances. I suspect these changes are going to be as vast as previous changes in media ecologies- the invention of the phonetic alphabet, the guttenburg press, or the introduction and production of mirrors in to social spaces. Indeed, this blog is a manifestation of these changes. I welcome discussion and debate on these topics- thoughts anyone?
Adam, I could be wrong about this, but it seems to me that academic publishing is founded on exploited labor. When I moved from professional journalism to academia I was really shocked to learn that I would stop getting paid for my writing. So who makes money in the academic press? Seems to me it is the big publishing monopolies. I find this very undemocratic. If the writers and peer reviewers are not getting paid, than why do we need the publishers? I think that for any given topic there are enough dedicated practitioners to create collectives that will openly share knowledge. Maybe this is a bit idealistic, but should I be contributing to a knowledge economy that is closed and blocks access to the majority of the world? That seems very unsustainable.
Hey Antonio,
It seems to me that your perspective on the situation is probably an accurate one. If we take the exploitative nature of academic publishing as given, what, then, are the alternatives? Blogging seems an obvious one, but I’m not going to make any more money from doing that than I am from academic publishers. It also seems like (and now I could be the one thats wrong) that the professional journalism industry is in a precarious position these days as well. All of this seems to lead to the conclusion that whether freelance, academic, or professional, getting paid for research and writing is a tough gig right now. On my more cynical days I can even entertain the thought there is a deliberate campaign to prevent writers, artists, theorists from being able to support themselves, and thus from performing their crucial functions in society. Even folks working in the physical sciences seem to be struggling- I just went to a talk given by UCSC astrophysicist Joel Primack who commented to me after the lecture that even his top ranked physicists are not finding jobs or research grants- at least not in the US where science funding has dropped off in the past few years. Meanwhile the US government is damn near defaulting on its own debt…
Freeflow of knowledge is NOT for the knowledge sake. It is to bring about a radical change. It is a form of resistance.
Sure. But knowledge isn’t only instrumental knowledge. There are plenty of things to do with it in addition to ‘radical change.’
Indeed isn’t only about instrumental knowledge, but the free flow of knowledge could be the precondition to form a radical change and of course to form a resistance
Yes I fully agree, Azis. My hope is of course that increased access to knowledge does lead to radical change, though I am also interested in the idea that instrumentalizing knowledge in all instances (for example saying that knowledge is always for radical change) already reproduces certain forms of social practice that I would like change.
Hi Adam,
Thanks for the response. Surely I have to admit I overgeneralizes ‘knowledge’ just to refers to bits of information in the form of PDFs contained in journal portals like JSTOR, SAGE etc, and well-fortified with cash wall. But the very definition of knowledge is of no special interest for me with regard to my flash commentary to your post.
My problem is, why placing this journal “theft of activism” around the problem of the longevity of publishing industry? I’m sure they will find another, more sophisticated and subtly exploitative, way to make profit.
I don’t know whether you have been to another countries whose more than a half of its student do not “have access to not just my own schools academic resources, but basically all the multitude of Bay Area campuses nearby, and, subsequently, all of their journal access. UC Berkeley, for example, is only a 30 minute BART ride from my house in SF, and once one is on campus the computers give you access to view and download the entire UC Berkeley pantheon of journals and academic search engine (thanks UC!)”. In country where i’m at now, of course, freeing information alone will not bring about radical change. But as Azis commented, to which I concur, it preconditons that change. Of course, I’m aware this is just a rhetorical words. But again, this is not the problem I’m about to address.
The thing is, in countries unlike where you at when writing this post, freeing information is the first move needed to bring about change. (The later would be to get those students to read it and to intrumentalize it in praxis) And exactly the present, using your phrase, “media ecology” that constitutes the foremost obstacle.
Hi Hizkia,
I do appreciate your thoughts and your response here. I wanted to highlight my own situation specifically to bring forth the differences you are highlighting above. It is true that getting access to professional research in the US can be expensive, but there are, as I mentioned, ways to get around that (sneaking onto UC campuses is easy and computer access is free once there!) I am sensitive to the fact the situation is very different in other parts of the world (I am a Swedish citizen, but a long-time resident of the US though I think the situations in Europe and America are quite similar).
I also fully agree that just bringing academic publishing online will not eliminate the problem of access to information. I’m sure there will be multiple rounds of debate and legislature around this — I’m sure you know that corporations are continually trying to privatize as much of the internet as possible even as we speak and on this note I think political action is necessary to safe guard what the internet makes possible.
My position is that information should be readily accessible by the public (particularly insofar as most research is paid for by the public to begin with) and that this information should definitely be used to for social change. In this sense I think influencing a country’s media ecology is always a politically charged act in any direction.