When Open Access meets the Napster anniversary

Two causally unrelated events which fit in together in the greater scheme of things ;-)

In some areas, the world is better aligning to what we have been seeking for many years. In some, of course, it is not.

In this case, today I found our article on the Network of Digital Repositories for our University, in the Revista Digital Universitaria [en línea] was published. We were invited to prepare an article on this topic because this month’s magazine would be devoted to Open Access in Mexico and Latin America — This, because a law was recently passed that makes conditions much more interesting for the nonrestricted publication of academic research. Of course, there is still a long way to go, but this clearly is a step in the right direction.

On the other hand, after a long time of not looking in that direction (even though it’s a lovely magazine), I found that this edition of FirstMonday takes as its main topic Napster, 15 years on: Rethinking digital music distribution.

I know that nonrestricted academic publishing via open access and nonauthorized music sharing via Napster are two very different topics. However, there is a continuous push and trend towards considering and accepting open licensing terms, and they are both points in the same struggle. An interesting data point to add is that, although many different free licenses have existed over time, Creative Commons (which gave a lot of visibility and made the discussion within the reach of many content creators) was created in 2001 — 13 years ago today, two years after Napster. And, yes, there are no absolute coincidences.