Lindsay McKenzie, Inside Higher Ed; Open Access at the Movies
"[Jason] Schmitt's film raises some important questions -- how is it possible
that big for-profit publishers, such as Elsevier, have fatter profit
margins than some of the biggest corporations in the world? Why can't
everyone read all publicly funded research for free?
Discussion of these questions in the film is undoubtedly one-sided.
Of around 70 people featured in the film, just a handful work for
for-profit publishers like Springer-Nature or the American Association
for the Advancement of Science -- and they don't get much screen time.
There is also no representative from Elsevier, despite the publisher
being the focus of much criticism in the film. This was not for lack of
trying, said Schmitt. “I offered Elsevier a five-minute section of the
film that they could have full creative control over,” he said. “They
turned me down.”
Schmitt said he made Paywall not for academics and scholars
but for the general public. He wants people to understand how scholarly
publishing works, and why they should care that they can’t access
research paid for with their tax dollars."
Issues and developments related to ethics, information, and technologies, examined in the ethics and intellectual property graduate courses I teach at the University of Pittsburgh School of Computing and Information. My Bloomsbury book "Ethics, Information, and Technology" will be published in Summer 2025. Kip Currier, PhD, JD
Showing posts with label profit margins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label profit margins. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 11, 2018
[Documentary] Paywall: The Business of Scholarship, 2018
[Documentary] Paywall: The Business of Scholarship
"Paywall: The Business of Scholarship is a documentary which focuses on the need for open access to research and science, questions the rationale behind the $25.2 billion a year that flows into for-profit academic publishers, examines the 35-40% profit margin associated with the top academic publisher Elsevier and looks at how that profit margin is often greater than some of the most profitable tech companies like Apple, Facebook and Google.
Staying true to the open access model: it is free to stream and download, for private or public use, and maintains the most open CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons designation to ensure anyone regardless of their social, financial or political background will have access.
If you are interested in screening this film at your university, please fill out our contact form."
"Paywall: The Business of Scholarship is a documentary which focuses on the need for open access to research and science, questions the rationale behind the $25.2 billion a year that flows into for-profit academic publishers, examines the 35-40% profit margin associated with the top academic publisher Elsevier and looks at how that profit margin is often greater than some of the most profitable tech companies like Apple, Facebook and Google.
Staying true to the open access model: it is free to stream and download, for private or public use, and maintains the most open CC BY 4.0 Creative Commons designation to ensure anyone regardless of their social, financial or political background will have access.
If you are interested in screening this film at your university, please fill out our contact form."
Monday, July 3, 2017
Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?; Guardian, June 27, 2017
Stephen Buranyi, Guardian; Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?
"The idea that scientific research should be freely available for anyone to use is a sharp departure, even a threat, to the current system – which relies on publishers’ ability to restrict access to the scientific literature in order to maintain its immense profitability. In recent years, the most radical opposition to the status quo has coalesced around a controversial website called Sci-Hub – a sort of Napster for science that allows anyone to download scientific papers for free. Its creator, Alexandra Elbakyan, a Kazhakstani, is in hiding, facing charges of hacking and copyright infringement in the US. Elsevier recently obtained a $15m injunction (the maximum allowable amount) against her.
Elbakyan is an unabashed utopian. “Science should belong to scientists and not the publishers,” she told me in an email. In a letter to the court, she cited Article 27 of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, asserting the right “to share in scientific advancement and its benefits”.
Whatever the fate of Sci-Hub, it seems that frustration with the current system is growing. But history shows that betting against science publishers is a risky move. After all, back in 1988, Maxwell predicted that in the future there would only be a handful of immensely powerful publishing companies left, and that they would ply their trade in an electronic age with no printing costs, leading to almost “pure profit”. That sounds a lot like the world we live in now."
"The idea that scientific research should be freely available for anyone to use is a sharp departure, even a threat, to the current system – which relies on publishers’ ability to restrict access to the scientific literature in order to maintain its immense profitability. In recent years, the most radical opposition to the status quo has coalesced around a controversial website called Sci-Hub – a sort of Napster for science that allows anyone to download scientific papers for free. Its creator, Alexandra Elbakyan, a Kazhakstani, is in hiding, facing charges of hacking and copyright infringement in the US. Elsevier recently obtained a $15m injunction (the maximum allowable amount) against her.
Elbakyan is an unabashed utopian. “Science should belong to scientists and not the publishers,” she told me in an email. In a letter to the court, she cited Article 27 of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, asserting the right “to share in scientific advancement and its benefits”.
Whatever the fate of Sci-Hub, it seems that frustration with the current system is growing. But history shows that betting against science publishers is a risky move. After all, back in 1988, Maxwell predicted that in the future there would only be a handful of immensely powerful publishing companies left, and that they would ply their trade in an electronic age with no printing costs, leading to almost “pure profit”. That sounds a lot like the world we live in now."
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