Scientific progress is dependent on the open and free exchange of
information. In the years before the electronic revolution this
meant publishing in written journals. This is an expensive
undertaking and obviously the publisher has a right to recoup his
costs and to make a profit. Scientists are generally not paid
(given money) for their contributions but gain prestige which can lead
to increased income. It is clearly in the best interests of the
scientists, the field in which they work and eventually the public to
have their work disseminated as widely as possible. With modern
electronic technology (primarily the Internet) it is possible to do
this more rapidly and at a lower cost than with the traditional print
methods.
It is not in the best interests of print publishers who make
money from their efforts. I note that the Diredctor of the NIH
has proposed a freely accessible literature archive for papers
resulting from NIH funding. This, predictably, is opposed by
many scientific publishers.
I believe that systems will evolve which will result in most
scientific papers appearing on the web, perhaps after a waiting
period. Perhaps text books, too.
Regarding the protection of intellectual property, the pirating
of music, movies and software is BIG business. I suspect
that the push to have other countries adopt our intellectual property
laws is driven by the size of the sales lost, which must be several
orders of magnitude greater than the dollars involved in scientific
publication. Without this motivation I doubt that the US
government would make a big deal regarding scientific intellectual
property rights.
Am I getting to be too cynical?
Martin Epstein
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