Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Jul 01, 2009, 02:56 PM

One reason I was abashed when the plagiarism accusations (justified, owned, apologized for, and, I hope, corrected)  came out about Chris Anderson's new book FREE is that I find him terrifically interesting and unusually thoughtful, even if his contribution is chiefly in raising timely questions, not answering them.  Fortunately, his unacknowledged borrowings from Wikipedia have not swamped the fact that we all urgently want a conversation on what is or isn't free and whether being free is or isn't good for us.

 

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Jun 04, 2009, 10:29 AM

Scott Jaschik has a new piece in INSIDE HIGHER ED on "The Split Over Open Access." Here's the url: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/06/04/open

 

Some University Press publishers signed a petition in favor of open access. Others argued that they believe in the principle but their universities hold them accountable to a bottom line as if they are businesses---and you cannot be expected to make a profit AND be expected to give away your only marketable product for free. This is the dilemma, and it is one that is also the subjet of Chris Anderson's new book Free: The Future of a Radical Price. Anderson is also the editor of Wired Magazine and the author of The Long Tail. He is concerned (as I have been in many essays, columns, and blogs over the last decade) with the inherent contradictions in the idea that "information wants to be free" when it costs something to produce that information. Who pays the price of consumer's "free" choices? And, in the scholarly world, if we are evaluated on our publications, if our universities insist that our scholarly publishers break even, and yet if we want them to give away their products for free, who profits in the long run and who suffers? These are very important questions.

 

Submitted by Cathy Davidson on Mar 31, 2008, 06:08 PM
Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert and an ace blogger, talks about the complication of giving away stuff for free on the internet. Like blogging. Giving Stuff Away Free on the internet is more complicated than you think. This is one of several different contributions to the complicated topic of "open access" or "free access" on the HASTAC blog.