…and this is a 
Along with SOPA and PIPA, our government is contemplating another acronym with deplorable consequences for the free dissemination of information: RWA, the Research Works Act. This is a bill to, it says, "ensure the continued publication and integrity of peer-reviewed research works by the private sector", where the important phrase is "private sector" — it's purpose is to guarantee that for-profit corporations retain control over the publication of scientific information. Here are the restrictions it would impose:
No Federal agency may adopt, implement, maintain, continue, or otherwise engage in any policy, program, or other activity that--
(1) causes, permits, or authorizes network dissemination of any private-sector research work without the prior consent of the publisher of such work; or
(2) requires that any actual or prospective author, or the employer of such an actual or prospective author, assent to network dissemination of a private-sector research work.
This is a blatant attempt to invalidate the NIH's requirement that taxpayer-funded research be made publicly available. The internet was initially developed to allow researchers to easily share information…and that's precisely the function this bill is intended to cripple.
Who could possibly support such a bill? Not the scientists, that's for sure; and definitely not the public, unless we keep them as ignorant as possible. The corporations who love this bill are the commercial publishers who profit mightily from scientists' work. And first among these is Elsevier, the gouging publisher scientists love to hate.
If passed, the Research Works Act (RWA) would prohibit the NIH's public access policy and anything similar enacted by other federal agencies, locking publicly funded research behind paywalls. The result would be an ethical disaster: preventable deaths in developing countries, and an incalculable loss for science in the USA and worldwide. The only winners would be publishing corporations such as Elsevier (£724m profits on revenues of £2b in 2010 - an astounding 36% of revenue taken as profit).
Since Elsevier's obscene additional profits would be drained from America to the company's base in the Netherlands if this bill were enacted, what kind of American politician would support it? The RWA is co-sponsored by Darrell Issa (Republican, California) and Carolyn B. Maloney (Democrat, New York). In the 2012 election cycle, Elsevier and its senior executives made 31 donations to representatives: of these, two went to Issa and 12 to Maloney, including the largest individual contribution.
So Elsevier bought a couple of politicians to get their way. It's typical unscrupulous behavior from this company; at least they stopped organizing arms trade fairs a few years ago, so we know their evil can be checked by sufficiently loud public opinion.
Tell your representatives to kill RWA. It's another bill to benefit corporations that will harm science.
(Also on FtB)
Life Science
Politics
Comments
Posted by: David Marjanović
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January 16, 2012 1:32 PM
PZ, it would have been better if you had noticed earlier...
Elsevier isn't the only sponsor of the bill, BTW. There are also Wiley and the AAAP (Association of American Academic Publishers, said to publish the journal Science) among them.
The incredible 36 % profit, BTW, are well within the usual range for commercial science publishers.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
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January 16, 2012 2:13 PM
I'm missing something (and I don't mean this as a rhetorical strategy; I'm certain I really am missing something): Isn't publicly funded research by definition NOT "private-sector research work"?
PZ, I believe the intent of this bill is what you say it is, but to my layperson's eye, it's not clear how its terms (the section you quoted, anyway) apply to any research work that is taxpayer funded. What am I missing?
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawlZvyh5SijxgJGCOR3zg2ftW60ZXolXBuw
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January 16, 2012 2:26 PM
@Bill, that's probably what they're hoping people will think. Here's the definition from the bill:
"(3) PRIVATE-SECTOR RESEARCH WORK- The term `private-sector research work' means an article intended to be published in a scholarly or scientific publication, or any version of such an article, that is not a work of the United States Government (as defined in section 101 of title 17, United States Code), describing or interpreting research funded in whole or in part by a Federal agency and to which a commercial or nonprofit publisher has made or has entered into an arrangement to make a value-added contribution, including peer review or editing. Such term does not include progress reports or raw data outputs routinely required to be created for and submitted directly to a funding agency in the course of research."
There you are. If it's publicly funded but has been edited by a private company, it's private-sector research work.
Posted by: Bill Dauphin, avec fromage
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January 16, 2012 2:40 PM
@3:
Ahh, thanks. That definition was (you should pardon the expression) the missing link.
Posted by: WCorvi
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January 16, 2012 4:59 PM
My GF, who is a professional writer, was SHOCKED that I had to PAY to publish! If they don't pay HER, she doesn't submit the work. She called Astrophysical Journal a VANITY PRESS. She may have a point.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/e10SRa1hsfotz2l4t_1HTQ8vxH4-#1fad6
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January 16, 2012 7:15 PM
I trust you all aren't simply talking to each other about this and are sending letters (not email, must be letters, preferably hand-written) to members of congress?
If you need to find addresses...
http://www.senate.gov/
http://www.house.gov/
Posted by: lamoureux.guillaume
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January 16, 2012 7:53 PM
Well, I don't mind Elsevier keeping its Homeopathy journal behind a paywall...
Posted by: Lance Pollard
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January 17, 2012 2:00 AM
Elsevier is evil. I just had to spend $750 dollars of my pre-paying-off-my-college-loans money for a membership to the UC Berkeley library. I run into at least 10 articles every day on Elsevier, Nature, and a bunch of other sites that I have to pay top dollar for the info. I'm lucky enough to have gone to Berkeley to at least have some way to remotely access research papers.
Give me access to info and I will single-handedly change the world. I will create jobs. I will make life more enjoyable. I will make the complex simple for everyone so they can do the same. I know I speak at least for everyone on http://github.com.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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January 17, 2012 2:21 AM
I just had to spend $750 dollars of my pre-paying-off-my-college-loans money for a membership to the UC Berkeley library.
holy crap! It's 750 for individual membership now?
yikes. I think it was around 150.00 when I first applied back in 91.
*sigh*
Posted by: Ichthyic
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January 17, 2012 2:25 AM
you know what would really throw a monkey wrench into the whole publisher racket?
if people started hacking access to the big name journals like they do with movies, online books, videogames and other trivial entertainment.
I don't think I've ever seen a hacked journal subscription, or hacked library subscription out there, and I looked pretty hard a while back.
consider this an open call to force the system to become more open, and the publishers into an endless war against network information sharing, just like the RIAA.
Posted by: brembs.net
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January 17, 2012 3:33 AM
Indeed, PZ, it would have been awesome had you noticed all of this a little earlier. Sure, your inbox is exploding, but there have been plenty of people shouting it from the rooftops - there was a time to pharyngulate the White House on exactly these issues:
http://bjoern.brembs.net/comment-n818.html
Ichtyic's comment is spot on: I know some libraries have physical copies of some publisher archives. These should be incorporated into the various library archives up until the 12 month embargo. A unified access to these archives (perhaps via PubMed) would erode the subscription-access to these journals quite quickly and allow libraries to keep the US$4b annually in publisher profits to invest in infrastructure for expanding their open access database of literature AND data.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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January 17, 2012 3:49 AM
A unified access to these archives (perhaps via PubMed)
there's a faster way.
Instead of pubmed, why not pub torrent?
why not something like Pirate Bay, but for journal subscriptions?
wouldn't that be a wet dream for those with limited access?
eventually, the hacked access would be coordinated via torrent search engines, and you end up with an entirely open access system, forced on the publishing industry by the people who actually use it most.
I suppose it's not worth asking 4chan to start the charge?
it will be a long war, but the hackers would inevitably win it if they really want to.
and, they would be providing a much more valuable service than hacking the latest comic book movie.
Posted by: brembs.net
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January 17, 2012 4:06 AM
@Ichthyic: I'd love ot see activism like that. However, one person did this once and is now in jail.
Plus, it is important to have sophisticated search capabilities because there are about 1.5 million papers added to these archives each year and there are many important authors called Smith :-)
So just putting it out there helps, but it doesn't solve the problem that access needs to be *better* than what we have now for scientists to support the activism.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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January 17, 2012 4:23 AM
However, one person did this once and is now in jail.
tell it to the guys from Pirate Bay.
it takes an army to pull this off, and freedom doesn't come without cost.
"So just putting it out there helps"
it's not just that. It's that it forces the publishing industry to start fighting against the hackers. So instead of wasting their time trying to make things worse with legislation like you see here, they're forced to waste their time fighting people distributing free institutional level access to their journal network instead.
Think about the effect open file sharing has had on the music and movie publishing industry, and what has become available online as a result.
THIS publishing industry could use that jolt in the ass as well.
and I'm not just being selfish because I myself want free institutional level access again.
no sir.
Posted by: David Marjanović
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January 17, 2012 7:32 AM
What really needs to become better known among the general public is that, if you write to an author and beg for a pdf, they'll simply send it to you. After all, they have no interest in anyone buying their papers; they only have an interest in people reading and citing their papers, no matter how they got them.
Also, some people – even one entire institute I know of – put pdfs of all their papers online even if that's an explicit violation of the copyright transfer notices they signed. Google Scholar is your friend.
Posted by: David Marjanović
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January 17, 2012 7:35 AM
That would be Institute of Physics Publishing, a not-for-profit publisher.
Posted by: coaxialflutter
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January 17, 2012 10:36 AM
@Ichthyic Elsevier and Wiley have plenty of time and resources to fight against piracy and lobby and create fake journals. I've even seem them feign support of open access. They are able to put efforts into all aspects of maintaining control of scholarly communication.
Posted by: matthew.holderfield
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January 17, 2012 12:51 PM
If it's so oppressive, why would any scientist submit to a journal that retains all publishing rights?
Posted by: Ichthyic
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January 17, 2012 3:25 PM
What really needs to become better known among the general public is that, if you write to an author and beg for a pdf, they'll simply send it to you.
of course, but the problem is, you have to know the paper exists to begin with.
which means you have to either know enough about the subject matter to know who is working on what, or have access to a good journal search engine (and still know enough to know what to search on).
otherwise, more often than not, the way I run into interesting papers outside my direct fields of interest is by... reading journals.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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January 17, 2012 3:28 PM
Elsevier and Wiley have plenty of time and resources to fight against piracy and lobby and create fake journals.
...and the RIAA is an entire ORGANIZATION with ten times the funding of all scientific journal publishers combined.
and yet, torrent servers still exist.
go figure.
Posted by: James_Evans
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January 17, 2012 8:24 PM
My own legislation will render SOPA, PIPA, RWA, and any future copyright/access/control bills moot. It's called GECA, or the Give Everything to Corporations Act. Once passed, it will automatically and immediately transfer ownership of and rights to anything that becomes popular, essential, useful, or even just interesting, like the Internet, other inventions and technologies, scientific discoveries, food, land, artwork, etc., to a smattering of large, well-connected corporations, whether or not their boardrooms even know the assets in question exist, let alone took part in their creation. It's really unfair that executives have to run off the golf course to hire a legion of lawyers each time they need artificial, price-hiking barriers constructed between the public and societal resources that often wouldn't exist without taxpayer subsidies.
Posted by: David Marjanović
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January 18, 2012 5:34 AM
As I posted to the FtB thread, that's a very good question which I recently answered here (about 2/3 down the page). Short answer: we're trapped.
http://scholar.google.com
Always click on "show all versions" so you get shown the free pdfs that sometimes exist.
Same for me.
Posted by: David Marjanović
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January 18, 2012 5:47 AM
...Of course, Google Scholar actually supports your point. It isn't known to the general public; it's not even mentioned on the Google homepage.
Posted by: Schenck
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January 18, 2012 9:47 AM
Don't know if this has been mentioned yet but, to play devil's advocate here, why not just not publish in Elsevier journals? I mean, apparently most scientists support Elsevier's efforts, because they continue to submit articles to their journals.
Posted by: matthew.holderfield
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January 18, 2012 4:00 PM
in response to David Marjanović,
Short answer: we're trapped.
So, the journals have something of value (impact factor) and we agree to their terms in exchange for the chance to publish in said journal. Then, when the journal attempts to enforce those terms, we call it immoral, unfair, oppressive etc. Do I have that right?
Posted by: Werner Huget
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January 19, 2012 12:34 PM
I am all for an open internet.In the field of cryogenics, the Cryogenic Society of America has created a web site CryogenicTreatmentDatabase.org. We encouraged other of articles and papers to send us their material before they commit to an exclusive publication contract with one of the big publishers. We have many informational as well as scientific articles on cryogenic treatment of materials. There are quite a number of articles that we are not permitted to post on this research and informational site because Elsevier and other publishers restrict access to their printed materials. In some cases we cannot even publish the abstract. So please pass the word for anyone wanting to get published in this special field of research to send us their material. It will be reviewed by experts in the field before posting. There are no strings attached. Access to all of our articles are free to anyone who is interested.
Posted by: David Marjanović
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January 19, 2012 4:33 PM
Dude... of course you know. That's because you've read the twenty-three comments that were there when you posted.
Yeah, but they didn't make it. We made it – by publishing in those journals and by reading those journals.
Told you we're trapped!
Difficult to imagine.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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January 19, 2012 5:06 PM
Yeah, but they didn't make it. We made it – by publishing in those journals and by reading those journals.
reminds me of the final exchange between the Cardinal and the Slaver in The Mission:
After wiping out an entire village that dared to resist being slaves, Hontar laments that what happened was unfortunate but inevitable because "we must work in the world; the world is thus."
Altamirano replies, "No, thus have we made the world. Thus have I made it."
One could argue that in the beginning, the consequences were unforeseeable, but we're supposed to be the smart ones, right?
surely many of us could have foreseen what would happen to the publishing industry.
You're right; those who patronized this system to begin with are just as guilty as those who invented it.
it would take an across-the board abandonment of the paywall system in favor of complete open source to fix it.
I can't see that happening in my lifetime, though it would be nice.
who knows, maybe the internet will end up changing things more than I think.