[liberationtech] Fwd: Re: tripleC: Table of Contents Vol. 9 (2011)

[Christian Fuchs]

Am 12/26/11 2:24 AM, schrieb Fouad Bajwa:
> This is a very good resource especially for people like us in the
> developing world. One thing we miss in this part is the creation of
> open access content. These countries could really benefit from such
> approaches.
>
>

I agree, when being asked if corporate academic publishing does not
discriminate scholars in developing countries and in universities that
cannot afford buying access, representatives of the academic publishing
industry tend to say that they want to make special access programmes
for universities in developing countries - but in they end they only
want to make profit and commodify all knowledge and all access to
knowlege. but open access is also not purely apart from profit, there
are models such as the ones by bentham or MDPI, who charge authors a lot 
of money, which results again in inequality (and further problems). i am 
convinced that the corporatization and commodification of academia
should be resisted, and this includes, but is not limited to the
publishing sector. non-profit open access is a first step and has its
own struggles to fight in the political economy of publishing...

best, cf