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With respect, the fact that he wrote the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto suggests that he did want to destroy JSTOR as a going concern. Now, maybe he didn't thin

With respect, the fact that he wrote the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto suggests that he did want to destroy JSTOR as a going concern. Now, maybe he didn't think releasing their archive would be enough, but he was clearly gunning for them. He wanted to provide access to the articles to people that do not have 50K/year to pay to JSTOR. That would by no way destroy JSTOR JSTOR prorates its fees so that poor institutions pay much less than rich institutions. And all of Africa gets JSTOR for free. Now, even individuals can get capped free articles from JSTOR. If the JSTOR archive was released to the world, why would journal owners continue licensing their content to JSTOR? Finally, do you understand that most of what JSTOR charges pays for either licensing the journal content (JSTOR doesn't own copyright for the journals it includes) or for scanning/digitizing new content? The costs that JSTOR charges pay for a hell of a lot more than a few web sites pushing PDFs to clients.

MichaelSalib 14y ago
Wow, downvoters really don't want anyone to know about how JSTOR is free for institutions in Africa or prorates its costs for poorer institutions the world over! I wonder if Swartz, who was very concerned about information access in the global south (according to his manifesto), knew about that.
smsm42 14y ago
>>>> If the JSTOR archive was released to the world, why would journal owners continue licensing their content to JSTOR? I'm not sure how this question makes sense. If the content that is accessible via JSTOR would be also accessible otherwise, which journal owners would withhold permission from JSTOR to publish their content? That's like saying if the book is available in the library, nobody would ever buy it. Obviously, it is not so. Also, surprisingly, in September 2011 JSTOR made public domain content available to everybody and shortly after that instituted free individual access programs - which they didn't do before, and which by your words should be impossible due to high costs that can not be supported in any other way but by charging for any access. Somehow it turned out to be possible still, and JSTOR did not collapse.

MichaelSalib 14y ago

Wow, downvoters really don't want anyone to know about how JSTOR is free for institutions in Africa or prorates its costs for poorer institutions the world over! I wonder if Swartz, who was very concerned about information access in the global south (according to his manifesto), knew about that.

smsm42 14y ago

>>>> If the JSTOR archive was released to the world, why would journal owners continue licensing their content to JSTOR? I'm not sure how this question makes sense. If the content that is accessible via JSTOR would be also accessible otherwise, which journal owners would withhold permission from JSTOR to publish their content? That's like saying if the book is available in the library, nobody would ever buy it. Obviously, it is not so. Also, surprisingly, in September 2011 JSTOR made public domain content available to everybody and shortly after that instituted free individual access programs - which they didn't do before, and which by your words should be impossible due to high costs that can not be supported in any other way but by charging for any access. Somehow it turned out to be possible still, and JSTOR did not collapse.