Are paywalled dungeons of information really a obstacle to promotion of awareness and knowledge ?
Ruchira K.
PHD Candidate|Ex KPMG| Ex Accenture|Academician| Legal Professional|SQE Candidate|Diploma in International Arbitration
Picture Credit: The Centre for Open Science
INTRODUCTION
Oftentimes, we come across interesting opinion pieces, current news happenings around me, but we are unable to access the same as they are blocked by a 'subscription option' or in other terms they are 'paywalled', which makes it all the more complicated for us to gather any reliable pieces of information, whether for leisure or educational, research, office or legal uses. It is still a question how far has 'Open Science ' succeeded in opening the earlier knowledge output reserved or could be accessed by those who could afford it , creating a divide between haves or haves not, leaving apart that. Another problem is the fact that we may or may not want to subscribe a magazine, newspaper, or journal after. certain time or after our use is done, it becomes a really financially burdening processes to click on purchase option every time. Although, the institutions, and organisations are taking appreciable efforts such as: a) providing discounts to groups or students, b) introducing free trial periods, c) alumni access to databases provided by educational institutions, there is a long way to go for equity in science of knowledge and information.
In my experience , I have tended to either encounter or have observed the following limitations for 'pay to view or access' option for information:
In order to access information from a website, journal, magazine, or a database , necessitates the intended user create an account on the portal that he is trying to use, and which would mean give out his 'identification details' - which is identifiable and personal to him in terms of his name, address, financial details (like credit cards date of expiry, cvv, to name a few) , age , gender , etc. It is essential that such risks are not ignored to while both being cautious, and effectively controlling the data subjects information centrally. Reuters data-breach is the latest to ring alarm about institutions lack of precautious in handling and transferring subscribers, data.
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When users or 'information seekers' either are not willing to pay and subscribe to pay price or cost of using the services of news, journal , database companies, they at times resort to piracy software such as : sci- hub, to break the pay walls and gain access to the invaluable pieces of information that they did not want to pay for. Is it illegal - the answer is both yes or no- depending upon which perspective your siding with - are you with the users who are often spammed in their emails with requests for subscriptions or are you with corporate entities whose greed knows no bounds ?
As a prospective researcher , I would say in the beginning of your career open science promotes the additional viewership of your work, which gives you not only exposure but also interested viewers may also provide feedback on your work. This is positive model for even users, but if it is barricaded by cuffs of paywall or subscription option, not only will the content get lesser viewership but you will miss out on essential feedback from the crux of the economy, those belonging to the lesser privileged , who add diversity to the information through their opinions.
CONCLUSION
Yes paywalls act as big problem for the backbone of an economy that is the 'information seekers', and as such a man without the needed information from reliable sources tend to have a narrow mindset, or deprived from pieces of knowledge output necessary for his research, or official purposes, and paywall option mounts to that very problem, and increases the chances for the users to resort to extra legal sources such as sci-hub to gain these treasures or jewels. We can only hope for an environment where financial condition, data privacy concerns can be a ground for not compulsorily subscribing to the news articles , journals or databases.