Open Access For Academic Writing
Sci-Hub is an “online tool that allows users to easily download paywalled papers for free.” It was created in order to circumvent the excessive prices set by publishing companies on academic writing and provide easily accessible material for researchers. Anyone unaffiliated with an academic institution serves to gain from this because the market on this information has become so thoroughly monopolized by publishers that they are abusing the price level. Even universities such as Harvard are struggling to maintain their subscriptions and it seems unethical that they are in this position because a lot of the work that goes into these academic journals is conducted for free by their researchers.
I think the actions taken by Elbakyan in founding Sci-Hub are admirable to a certain extent, but at the same time I feel like this fight against publisher greed shouldn’t be done around the law. However, the situation is difficult because the publishers are preventing open access in a way that is condoned by the law. The barriers to entry they have caused through exorbitant pricing have surely restrained countless researchers around the world. I think Elbakyan’s actions are considerably more justified because there is a corrupt dynamic here (depsite what the law says) and access to information should be a fundamental right for the individual, as opposed to a privilege only affordable to academic institutions.
