User:Tancre/Special Issue 9/notes

Archive, Activism & Copyright Notes on the texts of Special Issue 9

Special Issue's texts

Book Bloc's Genealogy

2010 Rome, mock books as banners and shields vs police Wu Ming > it is culture itself that’s resisting the cuts; books themselves are fighting the police + Q novel

new strategies of art activism and guerrilla

Interviews with E-Book-Pirates

The book publishing industry is repeating the same mistakes of the music industry

Why Science Is Better with Communism? | Alexandra Elbakyan

not only poors but also schools doesn't have access >> knowledge for all + donations problem of the business model of publishers but for first dissemination of knowledge
Piracy because violate copyright but the rights of intellectual property (of publishers), turning them for free is like theft according to the law
debate because some are trying to forbid the free distribution in the web but focus on the debate on censorship and privacy. Defense of intellectual property in the web requires censorship so is violation of freedom of speech + interference in private life by government which monitors users who violate copyright.
The very concept of copyright, intellectual property, is never questioned. Knowledge can be someone property?

In history this discourse can appear in the idea of communism (struggle against inequality, the revolt of the suppressed classes, whose members don’t have any power against those who have concentrated basic resources and power in their hands, with the goal of redistributing these resources). Today there is still an informational inequality (access for students and employees but not for institutions and general public).
The idea of communism works in the world of scolarship, however revolution is different from mass redistribution of property in society but VS theft.This is not a revolution but small protest against property right and unequal distribution of wealth

Theft as protest (robin hood, noble bandits, aldar kose.. ). If the state doesn't work well, people have to solve the problem themselves. Sci-Hub VS inequality of access to information.
Hermes as god of booundaries and transitions, raise of lower class in ancient greece > property related to keep something within boundaries. Theft as boundary-crossing and trade.

Then Hermes becomes the god of knowledge and begin of science. Science begin from theft in its openess. (Adam and Eva and the tree of knowledge + Myth of Prometheus)

Scholarly journals as means of communication so paradox of closed access VS essence of communication
Science as the knowledge of secrets. Secrets as something private, essence of private property. Disclosure of the secret as ceases of property. Communism as knowledge is shared. (plato's caste of intellectuals)

>>Science, as a part of culture, is in conflict with private property. Accordingly, scholarly communication is a dual conflict. What open access is doing is returning science to its essential roots.
+
Proudhon - 'property is theft' > anarchy and science as inseparable

• problem of the use of passwords to access documents but if in the wrong hands they could acces personal infos > passwords doesn't allow the use of private infos
• problem of researcher labours cutted out from earning money > compensation researcher/compensation publisher but system of donations, system for funding
• LibGen =/=SciHub > LibGen is a repository, doesn't download new articles but more to preserve the already downloaded