Those who take on the global industry that traps research behind paywalls are heroes, not thievesNever underestimate the power of one determined person. What Carole Cadwalladr has done to Facebook and big data, and Edward Snowden has done to the state security complex, Alexandra Elbakyan has done to the multibillion-dollar industry that traps knowledge behind paywalls. Sci-Hub, her pirate web scraper service, has done more than any government to tackle one of the biggest rip-offs of the modern era: the capture of publicly funded research that should belong to us all. Everyone should be free to learn; knowledge should be disseminated as widely as possible. No one would publicly disagree with these sentiments. Yet governments and universities have allowed the big academic publishers to deny these rights. Academic publishing might sound like an obscure and fusty affair, but it uses one of the most ruthless and profitable business models of any industry.The model was pioneered by the notorious conman Robert Maxwell. He realised that, because scientists need to be informed about all significant developments in their field, every journal that publishes academic papers can establish a monopoly and charge outrageous fees for the transmission of knowledge. He called his discovery “a perpetual financing machine”. He also realised that he could capture other people’s labour and resources for nothing. Governments funded the research published by his company, Pergamon, while... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2018-09-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
News tagged with:
#alexandra elbakyan
#modern era
#academic publishing
#significant developments
#technical term
Disney Publishing Worldwide and Del Rey Books are teaming up to do a new line of Star Wars adult fiction novels. The publishers will be working directly with brand creator, Lucasfilm. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#disney publishing
#del rey
#working directly
Scott McCloud, cartoonist and author of the acclaimed trilogy on the nature of comics storytelling that includes “Understanding Comics,” will publish “The Sculptor,” his first major release in six years, in February 2015. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#scott mccloud
Response to "God and the Gay Christian" kicks off new Southern Baptist imprint; awards and honors; Logos offers Episcopal Church titles. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#short takes
A coalition of publishers, booksellers and libraries argue that pre-enforcement challenges are "a critical tool for protecting free speech." Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
Laurie Parkin, v-p and publisher of Kensington Publishing, will retire May 30 after serving in those positions since 1999. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#kensington publishing
After months of uncertainty, efforts by former authors of MacAdam Cage, the now-defunct San Francisco independent publishing house, to retrieve the print rights to their books appear close to a resolution. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#print rights
New England is home to a number of large and mid-size publishers—the headquarters for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt are there, as is Perseus’s Da Capo Press and part of one of the big five trade houses, Hachette. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#big publishers
#trade houses
For more than a decade, PW’s annual fast-growing independent press feature has included a number of New England–based publishers, with 30-year-old Chelsea Green Publishing leading the way. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
The L.A. Register's debut reflects a belief by the owner of Freedom Communications that print still sells well in the modern era of digital media.Commuters at Union Station in downtown L.A. got an early look Wednesday at the first edition of the Los Angeles Register. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2014-04-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#freedom communications
#modern era
#union station
Dr. Thant Thaw Kaung is the founder of the Myanmar Book Center and executive director of the Myanmar Book Aid and Preservation Foundation. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#publish award
Total Boox, an unusual ebook delivery service based on metered reading, is making its library of 20,000 ebook titles available to the public to read entirely for free during the week of April 13 to April 20. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#free reading
#total boox
Katie Bond, formerly Bloomsbury director of trade marketing and publicity, has been appointed... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2014-04-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#katie bond
#trade marketing
Baker Publishing Group and Gospel Light announced that Baker will acquire Regal Books, the trade line of Ventura, Calif.-based Gospel Light. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
Laurence King Publishing, an art and design house founded in the U.K. in 1991, is gearing up for the debut of This Is, a series of titles about 20th-century artists presented in the style of graphic novels, with illustrations, original art, and text. The first three titles—This Is Dali, This Is... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#graphic novels
HarperCollins Canada experiments with publishing a multimedia digital original fiction series with text, illustrations and soundtrack created by Bedouin Soundclash frontman. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
Wool author Hugh Howey, who has emerged in recent years as one of the poster boys for self-publishing, discussed his career path, and the perks of bring a hybrid author, at a panel during this week's London Book Fair. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#career path
#hybrid author
In three days of meetings in the latest of our semiannual Religion Summits, fourteen religion/spirituality publishers presented their new and forthcoming books and talked about the challenges of the business. We heard about new voices to watch for and rising topics. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#forthcoming books
A music publisher is venturing into religion/spirituality with a line of books about the spiritual thoughts of celebrities. Now the company just needs to figure out where it can sell them. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |
"We cannot deny we are in an extraordinary transition," said author Anthony Horowitz, opening the sixth annual Publishing for Digital Minds Conference at the London Book Fair. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#digital minds
#publishers urged
Recently, experts working on ORCID and ISNI, both ISO-standard identifiers, spoke with one of the founders of schema.org to facilitate their use as embedded persona references, particularly through extensions such as BibExtend. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-04-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with:
#experts working