Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Monday September 10 2018, @02:35AM   Printer-friendly

Documentary puts lens on the open-access movement upending scientific publishing

Jason Schmitt was working at Atlantic Records when the online site Napster disrupted the music industry by making copyrighted songs freely available. Now, the communications and media researcher at Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York, is pushing for a similar disruption of academic publishing with Paywall, a documentary about the open-access movement that debuts today in a Washington, D.C., theater. "I don't think that it's right that for-profit publishers can make 35%–40% profit margins. The content is provided for them for free by academics," Schmitt, who produced the film, says.

The documentary explores the impact of Sci-Hub, a website that provides pirated versions of paywalled papers for free online, and interviews academics and publishing figures. Schmitt says many large publishers refused to go on camera—although representatives from Science and Nature did—and he is not impressed that several have begun publishing some open-access journals. "Elsevier is as much to open access as McDonald's fast food is to healthy," he says.

Sci-Hub and Library Genesis.

Related:


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday September 10 2018, @10:30PM (1 child)

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Monday September 10 2018, @10:30PM (#732949) Journal

    Copying is not theft.

    Even though you were joking, please quit playing into the hands of the intellectual property propagandists.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday September 11 2018, @08:56PM

    by FatPhil (863) <reversethis-{if.fdsa} {ta} {tnelyos-cp}> on Tuesday September 11 2018, @08:56PM (#733307) Homepage
    That wasn't a joke, that was a shitpost. Don't muddy the waters by confusing the two!
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves