The latest issue of Radical Philosophy has an interesting piece entitled ‘Pirate Radical Philosophy’, which is free to download. It raises questions about open access, piracy, copyright and the digital humanities. It is followed by a brief statement from the editorial collective:

Access to Radical Philosophy: principles and policy

As an independent journal of the Left, collectively self-published in A4 magazine form, and non-profit-making, Radical Philosophy has always aimed to maximize access while generating sufficient revenue to fund production. Currently, we do this by keeping the cover and individual subscription prices as low as possible, giving individual subscribers free access to our forty-year archive in electronic form on the web, and making more than 50 per cent of the archive available open access. We charge university libraries for full web access, in order to make up the deficit on sales to individuals. Downloads of individual articles that are unavailable to those without university or individual subscriptions cost £3 each – about 20 per cent of commercial rates.

But why isn’t Radical Philosophy freely available in its entirety to all on the web? Because we would not then be able to produce it as a hard copy magazine, since we would not generate sufficient income from institutional subscriptions. Much of what is intellectually and culturally distinctive about Radical Philosophy,we believe, is connected to its format and low-priced availability in bookshops and to individual subscribers. However, we are also exploring the possibilities of new formats.

We are interested to hear readers’ views on these issues and to debate them in the journal. Email short pieces to mark.neocleous@brunel.ac.uk or write to us at admin@radicalphilosophy.com.

RP