Access, ethics and piracy

Lawson, Stuart

Abstract

Ownership of intellectual property rights for a large proportion of the scholarly record is held by publishers, so a majority of journal articles are behind paywalls and unavailable to most people. As a result some readers are encouraged to use pirate websites such as Sci-Hub to access them, a practice that is alternately regarded as criminal and unethical or as a justified act of civil disobedience. This presentation considers both the efficacy and ethics of piracy, placing ‘guerrilla open access’ within a longer history of piracy and access to knowledge. By doing so, we can see that piracy is an inevitable part of the intellectual landscape that can render the current intellectual property regime irrelevant. If we wish to actively construct a true scholarly commons, open access emerges as a contender for moving beyond proprietary forms of commodifying scholarly knowledge towards the creation of an open scholarly communication system that is fit for purpose.

Citation

Lawson, S. (2017, April). Access, ethics and piracy. Paper presented at UKSG 40th Annual Conference and Exhibition, Harrogate, UK

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: UKSG 40th Annual Conference and Exhibition
• Start Date: Apr 10, 2017
• End Date: Apr 12, 2017
• Deposit Date: Oct 21, 2019
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2242099