M.L.O.P.

Have you checked out the Internet Archive lately? It’s an amazing place. Like an academic version of YouTube, they collect books, videos and old web pages, and make them available online. The Americans have uploaded entire university libraries and I’ve downloaded about 500 books on China without a single visit to a research library! The past is no longer an foreign country. And yes, it’s free and there are no restrictions on access.

The English are, not uncharacteristically, far behind. They still think they can charge for this kind of material. There is, for example, a company called ProQuest which has published all House of Commons reports online and stamped each page with a copyright statement! This is truly upsetting. First since it goes against the right of the citizens of a country to have documents produced by their own parliament freely available online. Secondly, since these ProQuest guys are laying claims to material whose copyright long has expired. And third since it makes academic research far more difficult. Unless you belong to a university that’s prepared to pay for the stuff, you can’t get access.

So, I’ve taken it upon myself to start an organization called M.L.O.P, the “Movement for the Liberation of Old Papers.” What I do is to hack into to the ProQuest web site, download the documents I’m interested in, and then GIMP off the copyright statement from each page. I then upload the file to the Internet Archive where it is universally available and free. It does takes a bit of time but it’s a very worthy cause.

* Check this out: Correspondence concerning Insults in China, 1857.

Yes, I’m prepared to go to prison for this. In fact, I’d proudly brag about having liberated an old House of Commons document from the clutches of market capitalism. Join me in my revolution! Liberate a document today!