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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

+digital liberty

Documentary puts lens on the open-access movement upending scientific publishing [sciencemag.org]

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 [paywallthemovie.com] 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.

[DO NOT POST THIS SUBMISSION until download and streaming links are available, probably later today]

Sci-Hub [wikipedia.org] and Library Genesis [wikipedia.org].

Related:

*SPOILER* (click to show) *SPOILER* (click to hide)

The Research Pirates of the Dark Web [soylentnews.org]
Wellcome Trust Recommends Free Scientific Journals [soylentnews.org]
Sci-Hub, the Repository of "Infringing" Academic Papers Now Available Via "Telegram" [soylentnews.org]
Research Libraries Announce Boycott of Elsevier Journals Over Open Access [soylentnews.org]
Elsevier Wants $15 Million Piracy Damages from Sci-Hub and Libgen [soylentnews.org]
US Court Grants Elsevier Millions in Damages From Sci-Hub [soylentnews.org]
Sci-Hub Faces $4.8 Million Piracy Damages and ISP Blocking [soylentnews.org]
Virginia District Court Demands that ISPs and Search Engines Block Sci-Hub [soylentnews.org]
Sci-Hub Bounces from TLD to TLD [soylentnews.org]
Sci-Hub Proves That Piracy Can be Dangerously Useful [soylentnews.org]
Plan S: Radical Open-Access Science Initiative in Europe [soylentnews.org]

Original Submission