[rayiner]

The law doesn't operate by going back to first principles ("will it really help humanity?") in every case. We've decided copyright is reasonable as a concept, and we evaluate each case by reference to the rules of copyright, without creating special exceptions all over the place.

Nor are any special exceptions necessary. Absolutely nothing prevents scientists and academics from publishing in open-access journals. Scientists and academics do so to cash in on the prestige of the "branded" for-pay journals. Given that they do this voluntarily, why should the law step in and ameliorate the collateral effects of their conduct?

[mattmanser]

This presents some pretty extreme view points as if they're perfectly reasonable.

I doubt you could find any member of the public who would say "Yes" if asked "Should research you paid for cost you money to read?".

No reasonable person would agree with the rules as they are if they were introduced today, we got here because it's not an election issue and special interests and lobbyists have distorted rules written centuries ago massively in their favour.

[Bromskloss]

> I doubt you could find any member of the public who would say "Yes" if asked "Should research you paid for cost you money to read?".

Isn't that a claim that the public may have against the researchers, rather than against journals? A journal is merely _offering_ a publishing service, and the public may, if they deem that service unacceptable, demand of the researchers that they do not use it.

[fao_]

> and the public may, if they deem that service unacceptable, demand of the researchers that they do not use it.

Many hiring requirements for researchers is that they have a published paper in X journal. Usually these journals are run by Elsevier, who takes copyright from the researchers. Are suggesting that the public lobby universities to change their hiring practices? (In which case you had better have a good alternative, otherwise you'll most likely be laughed off)

Anyway, your putting the burden on the public feels like just another way of saying "Someone else should do it". You're a member of the public, have you set up anything to demand that researchers not publish in certain journals?

[rayiner]

There is no rule (lobbied-for or otherwise) that says that publishers can put publicly-funded research behind a paywall. That they can is simply a result of the fact that all creative works are copyrightable, and people are free to publish copyrighted work on freely-negotiated terms.

If you asked the public "should there be a special law excluding scientific articles from copyright protection," I suspect most people would say "no." Sometimes the public agrees with the general principles of a law, but disagrees with specific applications. In those cases, we give precedence to the legal principles, not the public's opinion on a specific situation.

[anigbrowl]

It's descriptive, not prescriptive. Rayiner isn't endorsing the law itself, he's just telling you how it operates. People often seem to have trouble distinguishing between positive statements ('this is how things work') and normative statements ('this is how things ought to work.')

I agree with you that the laws are corrupt and should be changed, but that's going to involve refactoring the entire legal system on different operating principles, which is a radical change. IT's important to understand that this isn't one bad decision by a court or something that can fixed with a patch. Are you up for such a gargantuan task?

[stale2002]

We don't need to rewrite anything.

Instead, just start breaking laws that are corrupt, like copyrite laws, and eventually they will be unenforceable.

Copyright laws are already mostly unenforceable against individuals.

Laws only work because society mostly follows them. The ones that people DON'T follow, may as well not even exist.

[analognoise]

Careful with this. Having a number of laws people ignore can lead to situations where all of a sudden the existing power structure starts to enforce them arbitrarily (usually against political opponents and/or an 'out' grou p).

[jstarfish]

USC 2257 compliance comes to mind. With that on the books, a nebulous definition of what it means to be compliant and no precedent for interpretation, I'd hate to be in the adult industry when any administration decides to start enforcing it.

[dhimes]

In case anybody else doesn't recognize this, it's the law stating that porn producers must maintain proof-of-age documentation of their performers (at least that's what I think it means). Something like that anyway.

[stanfordkid]

This exactly. The law is a lot like the formal description of an algorithm that processes data. The courts and lawyers are the implementation, and the way in which people behave is the data being fed into the implementation. Overload even a good implementation and it will probably crash.

[namelost]

The US is a corrupt country, the laws are written figuratively or sometimes literally by corporations with the intent on profiting from them.

Given that, it is unsurprising that the laws do not represent the interests of the common person.

[Knufen]

I completely agree with you, in principle. Though sometimes we have to reevaluate the system and a good way to do this is civil disobedience, which I consider what SciHub is doing.

>We've decided copyright is reasonable as a concept

I disagree here, I think copyright is a great idea, but more and more often, executed poorly.

>Absolutely nothing prevents scientists and academics from publishing in open-access journals

To some extent you are correct, but if you want your paper to be read and spread your knowledge this is the only way. And yes recognition and money is also a factor

As for your question, the law should absolutely step in, but just because it's the law doesn't mean it's right and it can't be corrected

Edit: formatting

[loeg]

In reality, quite a lot of factors prevent academics from publishing in open-access journals!

[dhimes]

That that is what needs to be fixed.

[rayiner]

You're basically arguing for the government nationalize the brand and goodwill of prestigious publications, presumably without compensating those journals for the taking.

[travmatt]

Because most of the research is funded by tax dollars?

[KGIII]

Is 'most' true? It may also matter whose tax dollars they were. Google isn't being helpful.

To be absolutely clear, I'm very much on the side of open publishing. I just want to be able to form a more accurate reasoning so that I can well explain it to others.

[rayiner]

So? If the government funds contractors to e.g. clean government buildings, should the contractor automatically be subject to all sorts of considerations "in the public interest" just because it is being paid with tax dollars?

The government, as an economic actor, is entitled to attach whatever conditions it wants on its grants. The reason it doesn't attach conditions such as "you can't publish your results in <list of prestigious publications>" is because that would drive away the best and brightest applicants for the grants.

[solomatov]

> If the government funds contractors to e.g. clean government buildings, should the contractor automatically be subject to all sorts of considerations "in the public interest" just because it is being paid with tax dollars?

IANAL, but that's actually true. For example, government contractors are required to have affirmative action programs. See, for example here: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/hr-...

[travmatt]

Government procurement requirements have been hugely important in regulating and advancing the state of many industries.

[nerpderp83]

Individual scientists don't have a right to screen over the future.

There is a nice combo of fatalistic, libertarianesque schadenfreude. Only the most politically and financially stable scientists can afford to publish in non-impact-factor journals.

[ggg9990]

You're right that copyright law does not need a special case here. Rather, taxpayer-funded research grants should come with the requirement that all findings will be published open access. If you want to publish in Nature, go get your own research money. Scientists should not have complete personal ownership over subsidized research that they conduct.

[HaoZeke]

You know. Open access just means paid for by the researcher. Not everyone has that kind of money..

[tamcap]

There is a non-insignificant amount of work to take a paper from submission to publication. It's hard to determine the exact value / cost of that work, but article publication fees (and subscription fees!) is one way that work is paid for. So while I am sympathetic to your argument, one could then say that "rich" researchers should (based on an arbitrarily chosen morality) pay for open access, and the "poor" ones should go to low APC, subscription journals... I am not sure I like this argument either.

Now, researchers are slowly getting new tools where that cost is accounted for in other ways. I.e. The Winnower, biorxiv, etc. Whether one day one of those, or a future invention will replace academic journals, only time will tell.