Despite the advance of the Open Access (OA) movement, most scholarly
production can only be accessed through a paywall. We conduct an international
survey among researchers (N=3,304) to measure the willingness and motivations
to use (or not use) scholarly piracy sites, and other alternatives to overcome
a paywall such as paying with their own money, institutional loans, just
reading the abstract, asking the corresponding author for a copy of the
document, asking a colleague to get the document for them, or searching for an
OA version of the paper. We also explore differences in terms of age,
professional position, country income level, discipline, and commitment to OA.
The results show that researchers most frequently look for OA versions of the
documents. However, more than 50% of the participants have used a scholarly
piracy site at least once. This is less common in high-income countries, and
among older and better-established scholars. Regarding disciplines, such
services were less used in Life & Health Sciences and Social Sciences. Those
who have never used a pirate library highlighted ethical and legal objections
or pointed out that they were not aware of the existence of such libraries.
Ross Mounce
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