I really should be getting on with my research right now but I'm just so incensed by the fact that paywalls routinely get in my way that I've got to vent about it somehow. Probably no one will even read this, but I don't care. Because if even one person reads this and it helps them to realise how the system works, and motivates them to play against it instead of for it, then my job is done.
I get it, that companies have to make money. But even if your goals are entirely self-serving, there is a difference between creating value and snatching it off other people by exerting power and control over them. Whichever you may choose - and I'd certainly claim to choose the former - being honest about it is not a big ask. So it really annoys me when a company or entity claims to be creating value, but is really assuming it from others, and making a ton of money while they're at it. Case in point, standards organisations like ISO, and most academic/scientific publishers.
First, standards. Standards are mandated as part of the law in many countries such as New Zealand. One of the first principles about law is that it should be accessible to those who need to comply with it, so that they can understand it and comply. But standards are not freely accessible. They are typically not just paywalled, but paywalled at such eye-watering prices that it seriously affects the ability of individuals or small entities without vast sums of money to actually read them. Also, standards are great at just referring you to another standard! So you buy one, and it just refers you to another, and another, and by the time you find the actual information you're looking for - perhaps just one piece of information - you could be thousands of dollars out of pocket!
And my experience is that the content of standards is often vastly underwhelming. It usually turns out that the actual practical, technical requirements about how something might need to be constructed are relatively simple, but make up only a tiny proportion of the content of these standards, surrounded by vast quantities of bureaucracy and legalese. Sometimes, it turns out there really isn't anything to know at all, you just had to empty your wallet and fill your brain with garbage in order to find that out!!
For a start all of this is just wrong, but if you don't agree, ask yourself this: what is the impact of the decision to paywall them? These standards include all the information you need to produce products and technology that comply with the law and thus can be sold in local and global markets. Without them, you're screwed! So the impact, obviously, is that there is now a significant additional barrier to creating any products and technologies that must, by law, comply with those standards. And that includes most of the electronic goods that exist. What does that mean? Those with money - large companies, existing players - can just pay the fees and play the game, whereas new players, individuals, and startups, have a massive barrier in the way in order to compete. Not to mention the cost of actually verifying compliance with the standards - that's a whole different issue. But that involves real work to verify some kind of compliance in your individual case, so it's something arguably much more worth paying for.
You might say I'm just complaining that things are hard - but I'm not. I'm talking about the barrier to even reading the standards in order to even understand what is required and determine whether your ideas are feasible within the requirements, and therefore to, for example, produce realistic device prototypes that comply with the standards. I'm not even talking about commercialisation or business being hard. I'm talking about innovation itself. Or rather, realistic innovation. Because there is little use in producing a design that works great if it doesn't comply with the standards and will need to completely change in order to meet them - it's not a realistic prototype that you can use to say, 'look, this is feasible'. Paywalling standards that you need for that purpose, by law, is therefore something that restricts innovation and progress. The big players who have the resources to navigate this mess don't have the motive to challenge the status quo.
Big players also don't have any motive to change this system, because it keeps them where they are. It's another case of exerting power and control instead of creating value.
I'm not alone in thinking this, in fact some much more credible people have argued pretty much the same.
The counter-argument usually goes that ISO and other similar organisations need money to pay their staff. Hah! Standards are often written by volunteers! See what I mean about snatching value rather than creating it? My question is this: if the standards are written by volunteers, then what does the ISO actually do? The answer is obvious: they co-ordinate and distribute and sell the standards, and make a whole lot of money!!!!!
You know what this reminds me of? Scientific publishing!
I was incensed recently to discover that ResearchGate - a well known open access site that researchers can upload their work to, so that it's accessible for free - had removed a feature known as "projects". Days earlier, I'd used that feature to access a file posted by a researcher. They chose to make that work freely accessible and getting hold of it saved me a huge amount of time. I'd already downloaded the file, but when I later refreshed the page, it basically went to a 404-type page stating that projects had been "discontinued". Now in this case, it might or might not simply be ResearchGate culling an under-used feature, but to me it's the end of a way in which knowledge might be freely shared. ResearchGate have been under attack from scientific publishers for doing just that, by allowing researchers to post copies of published papers on the site, and thus enabling others to circumvent paywalls.
And it sucks. When you write a paper for a big publisher, they don't pay you. Mostly, you pay them. Mostly, quite a lot. And they take your copyright, so you can't publish the material independently. It's like the ISO making money from volunteers' work. Why do we even do it?! It's all in the name of the exposure that it gives you, being published by that company. Publish or perish, the saying goes, and you're judged by how "productive" you are, based partly on where you've published. Who cares if no-one can actually read the publication?!! Don't get me wrong, it'd be a great feeling to be accepted for a significant journal publication. I know the feeling just from conferences. Part of the value is that the material has been vetted and reviewed. But that's also done by volunteers. And in the case of ResearchGate, those researchers obviously weren't happy with the exposure they were getting through those big publishers, so they decided to put their papers somewhere where they were freely accessible. It's sad that legal action had to ensue. It just shows that the companies that "own" the scientific literature care little for actual scientific progress, and just want to make money. Like I said at the start, when you're just out to snatch value from people, at least just admit it.
Copyrighting publications doesn't mean copyrighting the science itself. Fortunately in my case, my existing work has been done through the IEEE which has a lenient enough copyright policy to allow you to post pre-publication versions of your work on a personal website. That being said, rather than hosting pdf files and trying to split hairs over pre-publication and published works when the files are actually the same, I think the way to go is to reformat the actual content in html such that it can be viewed easily online. That plus editing things to make them more appropriate for the likely online audiences should ensure legality.
So, here's the takeaway: I hate paywalls, and I hate them even more when they don't benefit the creators of the works behind them. Assuming I ever find the time, I am going to publish my works for open access on this website so that they can be viewed without paying vast sums of money to third parties. That way, if I ever do anything useful, it'll actually be accessible. What good is it if it's not?
None yet!
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