Open Access News

Here are a few more recent comments on PRISM.

...In short, if PRISM is any indication, the commercial publishers have overplayed their hand. By grossly distorting the intent and likely result of potential Congressional action, they have both discredited any reasonable arguments they had and alienated some of those who might otherwise be their allies. That said, Congress has been known to act based on discredited arguments in the past, so the publishers' effort might succeed despite its shortcomings.

From Jack Stilgoe at Demos:

...The arguments for making research open access are irresistible. PRISM’s aim is to counter them with an easy-to-understand but utterly disingenuous line that open access means state control of science. First, this is untrue. Second, it assumes uses a model of unfettered science that is way out of date. Third, it sidesteps the real debate that is taking place about open access. Which is why so many people have taken against it....

From Kevin Smith at Scholarly Communications @ Duke:

...[T]he actual arguments and assertions made by PRISM are...transparent and easily refuted; I called them simple-minded in an earlier post (here), and I have seen nothing that changes that judgment....

But even a silly debate can produce significant points, and one of the most important contributions to this argument comes from William Patry, senior copyright counsel for Google, whose blog has been cited here several times before. The “PRISM principles” refer repeatedly to preventing “government intervention” in scientific research. The irony of complaining of government interference in research that is paid for from federal tax monies in the first place should be pretty obvious, but Patry adds another point that is worth our attention. As he says in this post, “Copyright is always Government Intervention.” By definition, copyright is a government-granted monopoly that artificially supports the price of intellectual property to provide an incentive to creation....

We can only wonder if PRISM, however, will be true to its professed disdain for government measures and support the total abolition of copyright. Such a change would create a genuinely free market, where publishers would be free to compete with each other by publishing the same works at competitive prices; consumers would likely benefit from lower prices for books and movies, but it is pretty certain that creativity would suffer in the long run.

From Dorothea Salo at Caveat Lector:

...I talked to a roomful of publishers last December....A lot of my audience represented folks whose publishers are nominally (key word, that) part of the PRISM initiative....[I]f they were at my talk, there is no excuse for saying they didn’t know PRISM would blow up in their face.  Because I told them.

I told them about the American Anthropological Association, which was in the middle of a messy crack-up over open access. The funny thing is, open access turned out to be almost a side issue. The real problem was that top brass, smugly sure everyone in the organization thought as they did, pulled a big stunt without asking anybody, and when they were called on it, they stonewalled. Result? Chaos, disaffection shading into open revolt, and (ironically) a strengthening of the very movement top brass wanted stopped. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot, I said; lay your cards on the table and discuss, don’t be arrogant, because AAA has weakened itself with this and you’d be shocked at how easy it is for you to do the same....

When the Dezenhall thing broke, I told ’em again. Get away from this, I said, far away. I didn’t say “it will win you no friends and make you plenty of enemies” because honestly, I thought that was obvious.  Guess not....

From Bosco at Trapped in the USA:

...For those of you who can’t be bothered unpacking its double-speak [in the PRISM press release], I’ve provided a translation: ...

The Partnership for Research Integrity in Science and Medicine is a coalition launched with developmental support from the Professional & Scholarly Publishing Division of the Association of American Publishers (AAP) to alert Congress to the unintended consequences of government interference in scientific and scholarly publishing.

Our business model siphons money from government-funded scientists and sells their research back to them. The scientists, of course, pays us more money to read our journals from government grants. Any change in government policy would turn this spigot dry....

...said Patricia Schroeder, president and CEO of AAP[:] “Only by preserving the essential integrity of the peer-review process can we ensure that scientific and medical research remains accurate, authoritative, and free from manipulation and censorship and distinguishable from junk science.”

If we try to say that open-access does not involve peer-review often enough, we might even believe it. Open-access does not involve peer-review. Open-access does not involve peer-review.  These are not the droids you are looking for.  Move along....