[v1tyaz]

"...victimless crime of providing free access to publicly funded research"

Sorry, I'm just curious, but how do you propose funding the scanning, organizing and hosting of this research? JStor is a non-profit that has spent tons of money going back and doing all of this for millions of articles, and continues to spend money doing it so researchers can access the data without having to flip through thousands of paper research journals in some library.

[chaostheory]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't allowing researchers to freely post their publicly funded papers on whatever medium they desire whether it's their own website or another freely accessible site solve this problem?

As you've also pointed out, JStor is a non-profit. Donations and soliciting volunteers would probably help fund this stuff; it seems to work fine for Wikipedia. Regardless, publicly funded research shouldn't be kept behind pay walls.

[v1tyaz]

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't allowing researchers to freely post their publicly funded papers on whatever medium they desire whether it's their own website or another freely accessible site solve this problem?

So who's going to go back and digitize the 50+ year old articles from a journal that has long since ceased publishing? Also, a decentralized system would make research much more difficult. A lot of academic journals have their own websites where they publish articles; they aren't used because it's much easier to just use JStor.

>As you've also pointed out, JStor is a non-profit. Donations and soliciting volunteers would probably help fund this stuff; it seems to work fine for Wikipedia.

JStor is a relatively large non-profit, I'm sure they've looked at different methods of funding and have determined which methods are feasible and which aren't. Wikipedia is not comparable at all to JStor; one is targeted to the general public, the other is to researchers. There is a huge difference in the userbase.

>Regardless, publicly funded research shouldn't be kept behind pay walls.

Until a centralized distribution method is publicly funded as well, this is the way it has to work.

[chaostheory]

> So who's going to go back and digitize the 50+ year old articles

Volunteers. I did this type of volunteer work for hospitals and a museum when I was in high school. I didn't get paid for it but I still enjoyed it.

> Wikipedia is not comparable at all to JStor; one is targeted to the general public, the other is to researchers. There is a huge difference in the userbase.

Does it really matter who the target audiences are? They're both just publishing documents over a network. It's not like classified information or financial transactions, so there's not a huge difference. The only big difference between the two organizations is that one is open and more efficient while the other is not.

> Until a centralized distribution method is publicly funded as well, this is the way it has to work.

No it doesn't. All you need to do is free the publicly funded data. Who do you think Aaron was downloading the documents for? He was downloading them for another non-profit organization (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public.resource.org) that was willing to publish and host these documents themselves. JSTOR wouldn't have to pay for them to host it and people would have at the very least a backup for accessing this data. JSTOR isn't the only non-profit that has the capability of serving documents online.

I still haven't seen a good argument for keeping publicly funded research paper under a central paywall. It kills innovation, access, and it's inefficient.

imo a major reason Aaron was prosecuted, was because certain parties wanted to keep their paywall racket going without competition.

[v1tyaz]

Since you seem to have all the solutions to JStor's woes, maybe you should apply for a spot on the board of directors. I'm sure they've never even thought of using volunteers, or accepting donations. With you on board, they'd never have to charge another cent!

Sorry, but you're being completely unrealistic. Do you honestly think JStor would be able to rake in nearly as many donations as Wikipedia does with a userbase that is no where near as big as them? The people behind JStor aren't some cabal that just loves charging people a ton of money for access to journal articles (key word being access). If it were feasible to use donations and volunteers alone to provide their service to the general public for free, they would've done that.

> No it doesn't. All you need to do is free the publicly funded data.

I'm getting tired of this pointless philosophical debate. Hosting the articles is a small portion of what JStor actually does. When this Public.Resource.Org group goes to the library and digitizes all these journals, including tagging and sorting them, let me know if they'll still be able to provide them for free. Hint: they won't. Unless they keep getting people to unlawfully access them from an organization that does, that is.

If JStor were some big corporation that was raking in millions of dollars each year, then you'd have a point, but they're not. They are a non-profit that is doing excellent work.

[chaostheory]

I am realistic:

1) I would think that most researchers use computers and not typewriters to write their papers. It's been this way for a few decades now.

2) While Wikipedia has more donations, since they also have more users and way more data; they have much bigger hosting operations related costs than JSTOR. Even then, they've been able to run below $5 million dollars a year. Correction: JSTOR generates $65 million per year. They have a lot more resources, nicer offices, and much bigger salaries than Wikipedia; even though they have a much smaller audience and less data.

3) Other organizations are scanning books and they aren't charging for access to that data. Also once it's scanned, the ongoing costs are minimal. Storage is cheap and it continues to get cheaper.

I'm sorry but it would not cost $250 million dollars to make this available to everyone. Maybe a huge portion of these costs are due to their expensive Park Avenue office in Manhattan?

> Hint: they won't. Unless they keep getting people to unlawfully access them from an organization that does, that is.

This isn't privately funded research that JSTOR and academic journals are hoarding. It's publicly funded and it should be easily accessed by the public.

[sergiosgc]

If this were JStor's raison d'être, then the pay wall would be limited in time. Will the need to scan old articles exist in two years? In five? In ten, or twenty?

There is no sunset plan for the pay wall, so your premise is false.