196 8b061961-43d6-431b-8960-378eba63abb1 System Of A Takedown Marcell Mars Tomislav Medak calibre (4.11.1) [https://calibre-ebook.com] 2019-07-14T22:00:00+00:00 <p>Since 2012 the Public Library/Memory of the World1 project has been developing and publicly supporting scenarios for massive disobedience against the current regulation of production and circulation of knowledge and culture in the digital realm. While the significance of that year may not be immediately apparent to everyone, across the peripheries of an unevenly developed world of higher education and research it produced a resonating void. The takedown of the book-sharing site Library.nu in early 2012 gave rise to an anxiety that the equalizing effect that its piracy had created—the fact that access to the most recent and relevant scholarship was no longer a privilege of rich academic institutions in a few countries of the world (or, for that matter, the exclusive preserve of academia to begin with)—would simply disappear into thin air. While alternatives within these peripheries quickly filled the gap, it was only through an unlikely set of circumstances that they were able to do so, let alone continue to exist in light of the legal persecution they now also face. The starting point for the Public Library/Memory of the World project was a simple consideration: the public library is the institutional form that societies have devised in order to make knowledge and culture accessible to all their members regardless of social or economic status. There’s a political consensus that this principle of access is fundamental to the purpose of a modern society. Yet, as digital networks have radically expanded the access to literature and scientific research, public libraries were largely denied the ability to extend to digital “objects” the kind of de-commodified access they provide in the world of print. For instance, libraries frequently don’t have the right to purchase e-books for lending and preservation. If they do, they are limited by how many times— twenty-six in the case of one publisher—and under what conditions they can lend them before not only the license but the “object” itself is revoked. In the case of academic journals, it is even worse: as they move to predominantly digital models of distribution, libraries can provide access to and “preserve” them only for as long as they pay extortionate prices for ongoing subscriptions. By building tools for organizing and sharing electronic libraries, creating digitization workflows, and making books available online, the Public Library/Memory of the World project is aimed at helping to fill the space that remains denied to real-world public libraries. It is obviously not alone in this effort. There are many other platforms, some more public, some more secretive, working to help people share books. And the practice of sharing is massive.</p> Meson Press eng politicisingpiracy