Tracey Logan, File-sharing to bypass censorship, BBC News, April 9, 2004. Ross Anderson of Cambridge University, one of the first to advocate P2P file-sharing, now wants to extend the practice to the distribution of news. Not only would P2P networks bypass censors, they would break the monopoly of major news syndicators. Quoting Anderson: "The effect of peer-to-peer networks will be to make censorship difficult, if not impossible. If there's material that everyone agrees is wicked, like child pornography, then it's possible to track it down and close it down. But if there's material that only one government says is wicked then, I'm sorry, but that's their tough luck". (PS: Of course the same networks could be used for research data and articles, preprints and postprints. This would aid in preservation and freedom from censorship, but would hinder efforts to measure traffic and usage.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 4/12/2004 10:40:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
