JSTOR Makes Early Journal Content Free

JSTOR Makes Early Journal Content Free

Yowza! In a stunning triumph for open access and the free dissemination of works in the public domain, JSTOR announced this morning that all its out-of-copyright journal articles have been made freely available worldwide.

We encourage broad use of the Early Journal Content, including the ability to reuse it for non-commercial purposes. We ask that you acknowledge JSTOR as the source of the content and provide a link back to our site. Please also be considerate of other users and do not use robots or other devices to systematically download these works as this may be disruptive to our systems.

We also have Aaron Swartz to thank for this, I think. So thank you, Aaron Swartz. (Also: U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Carmen M. Ortiz, what does this do to your case against Mr. Swartz, I wonder?)

Updated to add:
From JSTOR’s FAQ section:

Did you do this in reaction to the Swartz and Maxwell situations?
Making the Early Journal Content freely available is something we have planned to do for some time. It is not a direct reaction to the Swartz and Maxwell situation, but recent events did have an impact on our planning. We considered carefully whether to accelerate or delay going ahead with our plans, largely out of concern that people might draw incorrect conclusions about our motivations. We also have taken into account that many people care deeply about these issues. In the end, we decided to press ahead with our plans to make the Early Journal Content available, which we believe is in the best interest of the individuals we are trying to serve and our library and publisher partners.