Comment. Good platform, bad name. OA to research has nothing to do with copyright infringement, let alone piracy. Even taking the Pirate name as a subversive gesture of pride hurts the cause by confusing people about this often-confused point. OA is already lawful. The largest obstacle to OA is ignorance and misunderstanding, and any association with piracy is part of the problem, not part of the solution. We have to demystify OA, not decriminalize it. OA is lawful because it rests on copyright-holder consent or the public domain (the expiration of copyright), not on infringement or expropriation. For the narrow purpose of achieving OA, we don't even need copyright reform, although many reforms would help. I cannot endorse any description of OA that classifies it as a kind of piracy.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 9/11/2006 01:24:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
