Banning Open Access II
Posted by John Baez
Remember John Conyer’s Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, which would ban the National Institute of Health from making taxpayer-funded research freely accessible, and also ban other federal agencies from adopting open-access policies?
Now Conyers has made a hilarious argument in favor of this bill, over at the Huffington Post.
It began when Lawrence Lessig and Michael Eisen wrote an article entitled “Is Conyers Shilling for Special Interests?”, ripping into Conyers as follows:
Right now, there’s a proposal in Congress to forbid the government from requiring scientists who receive taxpayer funds for medical research to publish their findings openly on the Internet.
This ban on “open access publishing” (which is currently required) would result in a lot of government-funded research being published exclusively in for-profit journals — inaccessible to the general public.
Why on earth would anyone propose this? A new report by transparency group MAPLight.org shows that sponsors of this bill — led by Rep. John Conyers — received twice as much money from the publishing industry as those on the relevant committee who are not sponsors.
This is exactly the kind of money-for-influence scheme that constantly happens behind our backs and erodes the public’s trust in government.
Yesterday Conyers struck back. Here’s the part that made me crack up. The last sentence is the funny one:
… on the narrow merits of the issue, Professor Lessig and proponents of “open access” make a credible argument that requiring open publishing of government-funded research information furthers scientific inquiry. They speak out for important values and I respect their position.
While this approach appears to further and enhance access to scientific works, opponents argue that, in reality, it reverses a long-standing and highly successful copyright policy for federally-funded work and sets a precedent that will have significant negative consequences for scientific research.
These opponents argue that scientific journals expend their own, non-federal resources to manage the peer review process, where experts review academic publications. This process is critical because it provides the quality check against incorrect, reckless, and fraudulent science and furthers the overall quality and vigor of modern scientific debate. Journal publishers organize and pay for peer review with the proceeds they receive from the sale of subscriptions to their journals, thereby adding considerable value to the original manuscripts of research scientists.
Do you see why this is hilarious?
Re: Banning Open Access II
I want my money!