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Should All Research Papers Be Free?

nytimes.com

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Re: Should All Research Papers Be Free?

#11

Post by savanaly »

stegosaurus wrote: post #7

All everything 'should' be free. At least, that which is not scarce. The correct question to ask is 'can' all research papers be free - does the world continue to spin, will research still happen, will we still progress, if they are free? The only reason we even have this debate to begin with is because the producers of this information require scarce/controlled resources in order to survive.

It's not exactly post-scarcity, it's just zero marginal cost. It's true that, given the product has already been created and has zero marginal cost, it "should" be free. But for setting the expectations that producers of future products have about what compensation they'll receive we can't simply say it should be free.

Re: Should All Research Papers Be Free?

#14

Post by zanny »

savanaly wrote: post #11
stegosaurus wrote: post #7

All everything 'should' be free. At least, that which is not scarce. The correct question to ask is 'can' all research papers be free - does the world continue to spin, will research still happen, will we still progress, if they are free? The only reason we even have this debate to begin with is because the producers of this information require scarce/controlled resources in order to survive.

It's not exactly post-scarcity, it's just zero marginal cost. It's true that, given the product has already been created and has zero marginal cost, it "should" be free. But for setting the expectations that producers of future products have about what compensation they'll receive we can't simply say it should be free.

The marginal units absolutely can be free, just pay for the research itself. Fixed cost for fixed work.

Re: Should All Research Papers Be Free?

#15

Post by pen2l »

imglorp wrote: post #2

Some things, like dissemination of knowledge, are truly in the interest of all humanity. It seems criminal that a few hundred people at the publishing houses should benefit at the expense of billions' welfare.

I agree with you that knowledge should be accessible to all.

But, do realize that there most certainly is value being contributed by journals who are making you pay. For example, the editorial work, the typesetting, the selection, the whole system, etc. So they do need a paycheck from somewhere.

So, I think this is actually like the common software/music/movies piracy situation... but a lot better!

My (simplified) feelings about piracy are: do it if you're dirt-poor, don't do it if you can easily afford it. By this account, Kanye was a d-bag for pirating.. whatever software he pirated, because he, of all people, should be able to afford it. A starving artist with lots of debts, in my opinion, can't be accused of doing a great moral wrong when he's stealing a thing which has an effective zero marginal cost (arguably). The biggest problem here is that... there do exist people like Kanye who really should pay for things but end up not doing so.

What's different in this scenario is that... I am almost 100% certain that all institutions that should be paying... will be paying! I mean, can you imagine some Harvard or MIT lab skipping payment on the journals? No, that's just not going to happen. The Harvards and MITs of the world will keep paying... the rest -- the public, or schools in suffering areas and nations, who can't afford it as easily, will be able to get it using scihub. It works out wonderfully in this way.

Re: Should All Research Papers Be Free?

#16

Post by ikeboy »

>The largest companies, like Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, Springer and Wiley, typically have profit margins of over 30 percent, which they say is justified because they are curators of research, selecting only the most worthy papers for publication.

> But that financial model requires authors to pay a processing charge that can run anywhere from $1,500 to $3,000 per article so the publisher can recoup its costs.

These two facts seem to point strongly to the publishers' being in the right. 30% is not a high number. If they were to lower their prices by 30%, running completely as nonprofits (or whatever number would break even), do you think people's complaints about difficulty of access would go away? If not, your complaining is not about their profit.

And you can't seriously expect them to eat a >$1000 loss on every paper.

Either we need a single party to fund upfront, like the government, or we need some other way to pay for it.

Re: Should All Research Papers Be Free?

#17

Post by pen2l »

rfrey wrote: post #10
arek_ wrote: post #8

Who will produce meaningful research for free?

The people who conduct the research, and the people who fund the research, are not collecting the fees to view the research.

Moreover, the people conducting the research pay to the journals too. There's sort of an application fee for submitting your paper to a lot of big-name journals.

Re: Should All Research Papers Be Free?

#18

Post by ikeboy »

ikeboy wrote: post #16

>The largest companies, like Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, Springer and Wiley, typically have profit margins of over 30 percent, which they say is justified because they are curators of research, selecting only the most worthy papers for publication. > But that financial model requires authors to pay a processing charge that can run anywhere from $1,500 to $3,000 per article so the publisher can recoup its costs. These…

The quote from the The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (not the UN charter http://www.un.org/en/charter-united-nations/, odd mistake by the nytimes) is also misleading.

The very next sentence says

>(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Re: Should All Research Papers Be Free?

#19

Post by KKKKkkkk1 »

imglorp wrote: post #2

Some things, like dissemination of knowledge, are truly in the interest of all humanity. It seems criminal that a few hundred people at the publishing houses should benefit at the expense of billions' welfare.

While it is the scientists who are writing the papers and editing them, the journals provide a valuable service as intermediaries between the scientists. Whether this service is best provided "for free" or for profit is another question. In some fields, the leading journals are already published by not-for-profit organizations such as the ACM, but I am not sure that they are doing a better job than Springer or Elsevier.

In a language that's understandable to the HN crowd, journals:scientists are as VCs:(founders + investors).

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