Carmody
14th May 2013, 20:33
We need a pirate bay for scientific articles. We need it very badly. We need an 'Anon' hacking all these systems to get all that data and publish it separately. Something to break their system of control. Completely. Utterly.
Over the decades, a situation has emerged where only a few companies are in complete control of science and it's advances.
This is due to them controlling the access to the scientific articles. They've made a very profitable business out of locking all science worth looking at, behind a giant paywall.
One has to be a member of a university or a major corporation to even begin to have access to all this data which was supposed to be free access.
Free access. Except for one thing.
A parasite has inserted itself into the system.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/50096804256/why-is-science-behind-a-paywall
Scientists’ work follows a consistent pattern. They apply for grants, perform their research, and publish the results in a journal. The process is so routine it almost seems inevitable. But what if it’s not the best way to do science?
Although the act of publishing seems to entail sharing your research with the world, most published papers sit behind paywalls. The journals that publish them charge thousands of dollars per subscription, putting access out of reach to all but the most minted universities. Subscription costs have risen dramatically over the past generation. According to critics of the publishers, those increases are the result of the consolidation of journals by private companies who unduly profit off their market share of scientific knowledge.
When we investigated these alleged scrooges of the science world, we discovered that, for their opponents, the battle against this parasitic profiting is only one part of the scientific process that needs to be fixed.
Advocates of “open science” argue that the current model of science, developed in the 1600s, needs to change and take full advantage of the Internet to share research and collaborate in the discovery making process. When the entire scientific community can connect instantly online, they argue, there is simply no reason for research teams to work in silos and share their findings according to the publishing schedules of journals.
Subscriptions limit access to scientific knowledge. And when careers are made and tenures earned by publishing in prestigious journals, then sharing datasets, collaborating with other scientists, and crowdsourcing difficult problems are all disincentivized. Following 17th century practices, open science advocates insist, limits the progress of science in the 21st.
* * * *
The Monopolization of Science
In April 2012, the Harvard Library published a letter stating that their subscriptions to academic journals were “financially untenable.” Due to price increases as high as 145% over the past 6 years, the library said that it would soon be forced to cut back on subscriptions.
The Harvard Library singled out one group as primarily responsible for the problem: “This situation is exacerbated by efforts of certain publishers (called “providers”) to acquire, bundle, and increase the pricing on journals.”
The most famous of these providers is Elsevier. It is a behemoth. Every year it publishes 250,000 articles in 2,000 journals. Its 2012 revenues reached $2.7 billion. Its profits of over $1 billion account for 45% of the Reed Elsevier Group - its parent company which is the 495th largest company in the world in terms of market capitalization.
Companies like Elsevier developed in the 1960s and 1970s. They bought academic journals from the non-profits and academic societies that ran them, successfully betting that they could raise prices without losing customers. Today just three publishers, Elsevier, Springer and Wiley, account for roughly 42% of all articles published in the $19 billion plus academic publishing market for science, technology, engineering, and medical topics. University libraries account for 80% of their customers. Since every article is published in only one journal and researchers ideally want access to every article in their field, libraries bought subscriptions no matter the price. From 1984 to 2002, for example, the price of science journals increased nearly 600%. One estimate puts Elsevier’s prices at 642% higher than industry-wide averages.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm not talking about making an uproar where they back down....and charge less.
I'm talking about getting rid of them. Completely. They are purposely blocking human advancement, for the purposes of being a parasite, at the bare minimum.
Ask yourself - What reward does that deserve?
Over the decades, a situation has emerged where only a few companies are in complete control of science and it's advances.
This is due to them controlling the access to the scientific articles. They've made a very profitable business out of locking all science worth looking at, behind a giant paywall.
One has to be a member of a university or a major corporation to even begin to have access to all this data which was supposed to be free access.
Free access. Except for one thing.
A parasite has inserted itself into the system.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/50096804256/why-is-science-behind-a-paywall
Scientists’ work follows a consistent pattern. They apply for grants, perform their research, and publish the results in a journal. The process is so routine it almost seems inevitable. But what if it’s not the best way to do science?
Although the act of publishing seems to entail sharing your research with the world, most published papers sit behind paywalls. The journals that publish them charge thousands of dollars per subscription, putting access out of reach to all but the most minted universities. Subscription costs have risen dramatically over the past generation. According to critics of the publishers, those increases are the result of the consolidation of journals by private companies who unduly profit off their market share of scientific knowledge.
When we investigated these alleged scrooges of the science world, we discovered that, for their opponents, the battle against this parasitic profiting is only one part of the scientific process that needs to be fixed.
Advocates of “open science” argue that the current model of science, developed in the 1600s, needs to change and take full advantage of the Internet to share research and collaborate in the discovery making process. When the entire scientific community can connect instantly online, they argue, there is simply no reason for research teams to work in silos and share their findings according to the publishing schedules of journals.
Subscriptions limit access to scientific knowledge. And when careers are made and tenures earned by publishing in prestigious journals, then sharing datasets, collaborating with other scientists, and crowdsourcing difficult problems are all disincentivized. Following 17th century practices, open science advocates insist, limits the progress of science in the 21st.
* * * *
The Monopolization of Science
In April 2012, the Harvard Library published a letter stating that their subscriptions to academic journals were “financially untenable.” Due to price increases as high as 145% over the past 6 years, the library said that it would soon be forced to cut back on subscriptions.
The Harvard Library singled out one group as primarily responsible for the problem: “This situation is exacerbated by efforts of certain publishers (called “providers”) to acquire, bundle, and increase the pricing on journals.”
The most famous of these providers is Elsevier. It is a behemoth. Every year it publishes 250,000 articles in 2,000 journals. Its 2012 revenues reached $2.7 billion. Its profits of over $1 billion account for 45% of the Reed Elsevier Group - its parent company which is the 495th largest company in the world in terms of market capitalization.
Companies like Elsevier developed in the 1960s and 1970s. They bought academic journals from the non-profits and academic societies that ran them, successfully betting that they could raise prices without losing customers. Today just three publishers, Elsevier, Springer and Wiley, account for roughly 42% of all articles published in the $19 billion plus academic publishing market for science, technology, engineering, and medical topics. University libraries account for 80% of their customers. Since every article is published in only one journal and researchers ideally want access to every article in their field, libraries bought subscriptions no matter the price. From 1984 to 2002, for example, the price of science journals increased nearly 600%. One estimate puts Elsevier’s prices at 642% higher than industry-wide averages.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm not talking about making an uproar where they back down....and charge less.
I'm talking about getting rid of them. Completely. They are purposely blocking human advancement, for the purposes of being a parasite, at the bare minimum.
Ask yourself - What reward does that deserve?