diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index a61289d..a52d60e 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -1,5 +1,82 @@ -Guerilla Open Access Manifesto -============================== +# Guerilla Open Access Manifesto -Guerilla Open Access Manifesto, by Aaron Swartz, in several languages. -The manifesto can be accessed at https://openaccessmanifesto.wordpress.com, but I am migrating to https://openaccessmanifesto.netlify.app/. +A copy of **Guerilla Open Access Manifesto** archived from [archive.org](https://archive.org/details/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/page/n1) +which is written by **[Arron Swart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz)** (*November 8, 1986 - January 11, 2013*) + +----------------------------------- + +Guerilla Open Access Manifesto + +Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for +themselves. The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries +in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of +private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the +sciences? You'll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier. + +There are those struggling to change this. The Open Access Movement has fought +valiantly to ensure that scientists do not sign their copyrights away but instead ensure +their work is published on the Internet, under terms that allow anyone to access it. But +even under the best scenarios, their work will only apply to things published in the future. +Everything up until now will have been lost. + +That is too high a price to pay. Forcing academics to pay money to read the work of their +colleagues? Scanning entire libraries but only allowing the folks at Google to read them? +Providing scientific articles to those at elite universities in the First World, but not to +children in the Global South? It's outrageous and unacceptable. + +"I agree," many say, "but what can we do? The companies hold the copyrights, they +make enormous amounts of money by charging for access, and it's perfectly legal — +there's nothing we can do to stop them." But there is something we can, something that's +already being done: we can fight back. + +Those with access to these resources — students, librarians, scientists — you have been +given a privilege. You get to feed at this banquet of knowledge while the rest of the world +is locked out. But you need not — indeed, morally, you cannot — keep this privilege for +yourselves. You have a duty to share it with the world. And you have: trading passwords +with colleagues, filling download requests for friends. + + + +Meanwhile, those who have been locked out are not standing idly by. You have been +sneaking through holes and climbing over fences, liberating the information locked up by +the publishers and sharing them with your friends. + +But all of this action goes on in the dark, hidden underground. It's called stealing or +piracy, as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were the moral equivalent of plundering a +ship and murdering its crew. But sharing isn't immoral — it's a moral imperative. Only +those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy. + +Large corporations, of course, are blinded by greed. The laws under which they operate +require it — their shareholders would revolt at anything less. And the politicians they +have bought off back them, passing laws giving them the exclusive power to decide who +can make copies. + +There is no justice in following unjust laws. It's time to come into the light and, in the +grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public +culture. + +We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with +the world. We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need +to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific +journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open +Access. + +With enough of us, around the world, we'll not just send a strong message opposing the +privatization of knowledge — we'll make it a thing of the past. Will you join us? + +Aaron Swartz + +July 2008, Eremo, Italy + + +>>**Aaron Hillel Swartz** (*November 8, 1986 – January 11, 2013*) was an American computer programmer, +entrepreneur, writer, political organizer, and Internet hacktivist. He was involved in the +development of the web feed format RSS and the Markdown(example this README.md) publishing format, the organization +Creative Commons, and the website framework web.py, +and was a co-founder of the social news site Reddit. In 2011 he was improsied for connecting one of his computer to MIT server for accessing Research and +Academic Journals, later on 11th January 2013 he committed suicide. [Know More](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz) + +--------------------------- + + +Original archive available at [archive.org](https://archive.org/details/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/page/n1) \ No newline at end of file