Should Knowledge Be Free?

Should academic research be behind paywalls? Researchers and peer reviewers earn nothing for their work, and yet academic publishers boast enormous profit margins every year from subscription fees to journals. Especially during a global pandemic, is it right for scientific research to be pay-to-read? Sci-Hub is an illegal website that offers almost all academic publications for free, created by Alexandra Elbakyan, who I interview in this video. Aaron Swartz, like Alexandra, felt that information should be freely available on the Internet. He ended his own life after being charged with wire fraud, because he illegally downloaded academic articles from JSTOR. What is the way forward? Pre-prints? Researchgate? Have your say below. A huge thank you to Alexandra Elbakyan and Rachel Atwood (@racatiwood) for giving up their time so generously on two occasions (due to Zoom failing the first time). We talked for a while longer, and whether you agree with what Alexandra’s doing or not, her accomplishments are quite