Cost, Ownership and Information

A recent flurry of stories about the controversial site SciHub has me thinking about access and fairness. I know well the inability to afford access to much of the information locked up behind paywalls. There are many resources that we could have access to if pricing was more reasonable. It is a system where the deck is stacked in favor of those who mind the odd system that uses academic slave labor then turns around and sells those products back to the slaves that created it. A system that  seeks the perpetual extension of copyright and rights, even as the public domain is rolled up like a private carpet.

Recently, I purchased four rolls of microfilm from one of the large for profit information companies. The Colorado Historical Society had outsourced access to this company resulting in the inflated cost of $800 dollars, plus 27 dollars shipping for rolls that routinely cost from $30 to $100 dollars each from other suppliers. Documents in the public domain are now licensed to a company that will rake us up front when we buy and rake us again if we publish. I continue to watch the ongoing developments with SciHub and other radical experiments in pirate information access. Similar to any other democratic revolution where people rise up against their oppressors, the end result may be greater freedom for us all.