Image via Wikipedia
In case you don't know, JSTOR is a non-profit organization that provides online access to scholarly journal articles in a wide variety of fields, everything from African-American studies (17 titles) to zoology (65 titles). It is an invaluable resource, and I use it frequently.1Aaron Swartz, a 24-year-old programmer and online political activist, has been indicted in Boston on charges that he stole more than four million documents from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and JSTOR, an archive of scientific journals and academic papers. (Read the full indictment below.)
Mr. Swartz was indicted last Thursday by the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, Carmen M. Ortiz, and the indictment was unsealed Tuesday. The charges could result in up to 35 years in prison and a $1 million fine. ("Internet activist charged in M.I.T. data theft," by Nick Bilton, The New York Times, 19 July 2011).
But it isn't free.
I don't know how much UConn or other institutions pay for access, but the fees they pay are how JSTOR is able to scan old titles, run them through OCR, post them and new articles on servers, and maintain the servers. It costs money to provide those services, and subscriptions provide that money.
I wish it were possible for all scholarly literature to be freely available without charge.2 But until someone figures out how to provide the funds necessary to make that possible, subscriptions will be necessary. And make no mistake. If Swartz did what he is accused of doing, he clearly broke the terms and conditions for use of JSTOR. I'll leave it to lawyers to determine whether his actions fit the legal definition of stealing, but if he did download more than four million articles from JSTOR, I will regard him as a crook.
1The issues of Evolution up through about 1996 were scanned from my collection. I find that I use JSTOR more often to look something up in those volumes than I walk across the hall to my lab and pull the volume from the shelf.
2It would provide a rich alternative to Wikipedia and make Wikipedia much better.
Leave a comment