The Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal Scholarship calls for all law school

Law school

A law school is an institution specializing in legal education.- Law degrees :- Canada :...

s to stop publishing their law journals

Law review

A law review is a scholarly journal focusing on legal issues, normally published by an organization of students at a law school or through a bar association...

 in print format and to rely instead on open-access

Open access journal

Open access journals are scholarly journals that are available online to the reader "without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself." Some are subsidized, and some require payment on behalf of the author.Subsidized journals...

 electronic publication

Electronic publishing

Electronic publishing or ePublishing includes the digital publication of e-books and electronic articles, and the development of digital libraries and catalogues. Electronic publishing has become common in scientific publishing where it has been argued that peer-reviewed scientific journals are in...

 coupled with a commitment to keep the electronic versions available in stable, open, digital formats. It was written by Richard Danner

Richard Danner

Richard A. Danner is the Archibald C. and Frances Fulk Rufty Research Professor of Law at Duke University School of Law in Durham, North Carolina. He also holds the position of Senior Associate Dean for Information Services. Professor Danner has served in various capacities at Duke, starting in...

 (Duke University School of Law

Duke University School of Law

The Duke University School of Law is the law school and a constituent academic unit of Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States. One of Duke's 10 schools and colleges, the School of Law began as the Trinity College School of Law in 1868. In 1924, following the renaming of Trinity...

) and John Palfrey

John Palfrey

John Palfrey is a faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, vice dean for library and information resources, and the Henry N. Ess III Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He led a reorganization of the Harvard Law School Library in 2009...

 (Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...

) and signed by the directors of the law libraries

Law library

A law library is a library designed to assist law students, attorneys, judges, and their law clerks and anyone else who finds it necessary to correctly determine the state of the law....

 of a dozen law schools from the Eastern United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. An important motivation underlying this call is the fact that "very few law journals receive enough in subscription income

Subscription business model

The subscription business model is a business model where a customer must pay a subscription price to have access to the product/service. The model was pioneered by magazines and newspapers, but is now used by many businesses and websites....

 and royalties

Royalties

Royalties are usage-based payments made by one party to another for the right to ongoing use of an asset, sometimes an intellectual property...

to cover their costs of operation", in addition to improving access to journals.