With #icanhazpdf, Twitter users are working together to avoid financial barriers for accessing academic research.
Is it civil disobedience, or just piracy?
While the internet can seem like it contains an unlimited amount of free or affordably-accessed information, many scientists, academics and even students know that for most important research, this is not the case. The majority of the world’s researched information and knowledge is contained in very expensive scientific journals that are only accessible to those who belong to institutions that have subscribed to them, or are personally capable of paying the high costs required for them. It’s not uncommon for many scholars around the world to sometimes need access to a paper published in a scientific journal that they are not subscribed to. In recent years, rather than paying for individual articles that can cost $30 or more, or for journals that can cost thousands of dollars annually, many scholars have been turning to their peers on Twitter in efforts to avoid the paywalls that these papers are hidden behind.
By using the hashtag #icanhazpdf, which was created in 2011 by scientist Andrea Kuszewski (and is derived from this meme), Twitter users are requesting copies of documents from those who have access to them. The process begins with a user tweeting “#icanhazpdf”, along with identifying information about an article (such as it’s title or DOI), with the hopes that a user who searches for the hashtag will see their tweet. When a user who has access to the mentioned article sees the request, they download the article from a journal as a PDF and then send it to the person who requested it, through Twitter or email. After the original user receives the article, they delete their request in order to remove it from public record, as well as to prevent additional users from fulfilling it.
Supporters of this practice tend to be people who are discontent with the business model of the publishers that control scientific research. Why is it, they ask, that so much research — which is created by academics, reviewed by their peers, and often funded by taxpayers — is hidden behind paywalls that make it inaccessible to the majority of people, including many of those same academics and taxpayers? By exchanging articles through websites like Twitter, people who have access to scientific journals can share research with those who are unable to access them due to financial or geographical conditions. Users of this method view it as an act of civil disobedience that they hope will cause publishers of academic journals to rework their long-standing subscription models. “It’s not an aggressive act,” Kuszewski says, “but it’s just a way of saying things need to change.”
On the other hand, opponents of this practice view it as piracy. Publishers of the journals believe that it is wrong to distribute research contained in them to non-subscribers. They feel that research, especially research that is peer-reviewed, has value that is represented in these prices. They also argue that they perform an important service in disseminating scientific research, and that the subscription prices are necessary in order for them to maintain the quality of their journals. While policies vary with each publisher, sharing documents in this way is generally against their rules. Furthermore, academic papers are protected by copyright laws, just like music, movies, or software. So in most cases, those who participate in this method of sharing research are breaking copyright laws in addition to publishers’ terms of service.
Both sides of the issue present valid points, but I am more swayed by the point of view of those who support the practice. It surprises me that the costs of accessing so much important knowledge have increased so much when digitization has made managing it simpler for publishers, and their business models definitely seem outdated given the possibilities of current technology. It seems as though publishers might not be as necessary as they once were now that the internet allows virtually anyone to share whatever information that they wish to. Given the exorbitant prices of academic journals and the fact that publishers themselves neither fund, conduct, nor review the research, I can see why these scholars aren’t concerned with possibly causing a dip in their profits. The availability of the internet made it inevitable that people would try to spread knowledge freely through #icanhazpdf and other sources such as /r/scholar and Sci-Hub. I am sure that this civil disobedience will continue until publishers make research more accessible or until researchers provide open access to their work and make publishers irrelevant.
