To be fair, there is a dark underside to "open access".
One of the most significant open access publishers creates $100 million+ in value a year but, 20 years after inception, struggles to find a sustainable source of just $400,000 a year to fund operations. Few of the 100,000+ regular users have any idea of the lost opportunities and problems of talent retention that this site has had.
Perhaps I'm reacting to my most recent experiences with the "free" business model, but Tom Reller is right to say that what Elsevier does is more sustainable than most open access.
While I believe that publishers could create a cost effective business model in which they re-coop their investment, what this legislation does is allow them to sever any responsibility they have to the public in the name of profit and destroy any attempt by those that fund their industry to exert some level of oversight on behalf of the tax payer.
They are attempting to destroy a reasonable compromise that they have 12 months to profit on articles, but the NIH imposes a limit so that they can't put the papers behind a paywall Ad infinitum. And under the current rules they still seem to be doing fairly well:
Congress should appropriate $400,000 for them, then. Scientific research is inherently unsustainable if you focus on short-term profits, that's why so much of it is federally funded.
If we get to just say what we're worth, I'm worth a billion dollars, and my employer is woefully underpaying me. The government needs to step in and ensure I'm paid what I'm worth!
One of the most significant open access publishers creates $100 million+ in value a year but, 20 years after inception, struggles to find a sustainable source of just $400,000 a year to fund operations. Few of the 100,000+ regular users have any idea of the lost opportunities and problems of talent retention that this site has had.
Perhaps I'm reacting to my most recent experiences with the "free" business model, but Tom Reller is right to say that what Elsevier does is more sustainable than most open access.