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> I think it's an issue of copyright law being ridiculous. I disagree, scientists generally aren't seeking to get money by people buying a copy of their paper

> I think it's an issue of copyright law being ridiculous. I disagree, scientists generally aren't seeking to get money by people buying a copy of their paper (if anything they're currently paying so people can read it) there's no need for them to invoke copyright law at all, in fact that would be against their own interest. The problem is that the current system forces scientists to publish in journals, which will happily charge an arm and a leg for the privilege, and invoke whatever law they can to make more money, even if this goes directly against the interests of the scientists who wrote the papers.

Houshalter 10y ago
The Journals wouldn't be an issue in the first place without copyright law. And fixing copyright solves problems beyond scientific Journals. You could have nonfiction books in general, textbooks, etc, all available to the public domain.
dredmorbius 10y ago
You're pretty much entirely missing the point. 1. Scientists aren't at the heart of the scientific Open Access problem. Journals are. 2. The fact that copyright exists means that journals can then request it be transferred (or licensed) to the journal. For what's effectively forever. 3. Journals exercise gatekeeper access over scientists' careers, in that publishing in prestige journals is how scientists advance academically. This is de facto* coercive control over scientists. 4. With that control, journals compell publication of articles in controlled journals, for scientists to advance, require subscriptions of libraries (who otherwise forgo access to the material), and maintain a bank of virtually all scientific papers published since 1924 as an absolute monopoly. Hence: no copyright, or a far-less-rediculous copyright, say, 14, 28, or 54 years (as was historically the case, via registration(s) and/or renewals), and much the problem would disappear. The additional factor of deadweight costs of denied access to virtually all of humanity for this material is the other cost.

Houshalter 10y ago

The Journals wouldn't be an issue in the first place without copyright law. And fixing copyright solves problems beyond scientific Journals. You could have nonfiction books in general, textbooks, etc, all available to the public domain.

dredmorbius 10y ago

You're pretty much entirely missing the point. 1. Scientists aren't at the heart of the scientific Open Access problem. Journals are. 2. The fact that copyright exists means that journals can then request it be transferred (or licensed) to the journal. For what's effectively forever. 3. Journals exercise gatekeeper access over scientists' careers, in that publishing in prestige journals is how scientists advance academically. This is de facto* coercive control over scientists. 4. With that control, journals compell publication of articles in controlled journals, for scientists to advance, require subscriptions of libraries (who otherwise forgo access to the material), and maintain a bank of virtually all scientific papers published since 1924 as an absolute monopoly. Hence: no copyright, or a far-less-rediculous copyright, say, 14, 28, or 54 years (as was historically the case, via registration(s) and/or renewals), and much the problem would disappear. The additional factor of deadweight costs of denied access to virtually all of humanity for this material is the other cost.