Oh No! Nobody Reads! Oh No! It's Too Cheap For Everyone To Read!

from the accessibility-is-a-good-thing dept

We recently wrote about how booksellers were freaking out over the "price war" between Amazon and Wal-Mart, whereby they're starting to offer certain books at a very cheap price to bring in more customers. The whole thing was a bit silly. Reader Robin Trehaeven alerts us to a fantastic opinion piece in the Library Journal by Barbara Fister, a librarian at Gustavus Adolphus College, in which she does a superb job mocking what she refers to as the "accessibility paradox" where those who are used to being gatekeepers to information at the same time as they're supposedly promoting the benefits of greater information, suddenly start whining when information really does get more accessible. This includes those booksellers:

I'm also taken aback by the horrified response of the book industry. I thought the big crisis was that nobody reads. Now it turns out the problem is that books are so popular with the masses they're being used as bait to draw in shoppers.

Come on, guys, get your story straight! Which is it?

But most of her brilliant sarcasm is directed at those in her own profession, who both work hard to get information for free, at the same time they complain about how the internet has made it so easy to route around librarians:

It strikes me that this issue is somewhat parallel to the love-hate relationship that many academic librarians have had with the Internet. Although our complicated relationship is improving, there are still some silly assumptions floating around. Oh no, our reference stats are down! Hurrah! People are able to find answers without our help. That's awesome! Anybody can publish on the web, unlike scholarly journals which are peer-reviewed. Fine, but don't tell me all peer-reviewed journal articles are shining examples of reason and academic brilliance. A lot of them are finely-sliced research rehashing the same findings, or are closely examined and exquisitely detailed trivia. Besides, there are plenty of examples of peer review failing in spectacular ways--and examples of wonderful peer-reviewed journals that were born free online.

But this is my favorite: Unlike information you find on the web, we pay for the information in our databases, and you get what you pay for. No, actually, with what you pay for you get a lot of junk that you don't even want, but you have no choice.

You want this journal? You have to subscribe to this pricey bundle. Either that, or you purchase one article at a time for your users, something more and more libraries are doing. You spend less, but the information never visits the library--it goes straight from the publisher to the desk of one user. All the library gets is the bill. Apart from failing on its merits, the argument that paid is better than free is self-contradicting. We can't tell students that purchased information is by definition better than free and, at the same time, beg faculty to recognize how broken the current system is and please, please, please make their work open access.

It's a great overall column, and nice to see a librarian lay the smackdown on hypocrisy within the bookselling and librarian worlds.

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The Ridiculous Copyright Situation Faced By Academics Who Want To Promote Their Own Research

from the don't-ask,-don't-tell dept

Ed Kohler points us to a long, but fascinating blog post, by Stuart Shieber, a CS professor at Harvard, discussing the somewhat ridiculous copyright situation that many academics deal with in trying to promote their own works. I've heard similar stories from other professors I know, but this one is worth reading. Shieber points out the importance of academics getting their research published in journals, but how annoying it is that most journals require those academics to give up all sorts of rights -- including the right to distribute their own research on their websites. However, he notes that most published academics simply ignore this rule, and you end up with a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Even though they're legally prevented from putting up a PDF of their work on their website, they do so anyway, and journals just look the other way.

Shieber, however, finds this situation to be a bad thing, and instead adds an amendment that at least grants him the right to publish his own research on his own website. It seems pretty ridiculous that this should even be an issue at all. He notes that most journals haven't had a problem with this -- which is surprising, but good to hear. He did run into one publisher, however, who fought him on it, and after lots of back and forth, his paper was pulled. The reasoning that the journal gave didn't make much sense, and Shieber shows how wrong they are (for example, they claim that if professors published the works on their website, demand for journal subscriptions would go down -- but Shieber did a quick look, and found that about 80% of those who published in the same journal had posted the content anyway, and it hadn't killed off the journal, so arguing against him seemed pointless). Eventually, he was able to convince the journal to change its policies and got his paper published, but it delayed publication for a while.

It's really unfortunate that journals still think that locking up such content makes sense. The idea that researchers shouldn't be allowed to share their own research with the world because some journal needs artificial scarcity for its business model is something that needs to be put to rest.

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Rep. Conyers, Once Again, Trying To Lock Up Federally Funded Research

from the isn't-that-a-problem? dept

Last year, Congress finally got fed up with the fact that publicly funded research was being locked up in various scientific journals. The whole journal business is something of a scam. Unlike other publications, the folks who write the papers for journals pay the journals to get their content published. On top of that, the "peers" who review the works aren't paid for their work either. In other words, these journals get a ton of free labor... and sometimes that labor pays them. And, then, on top of that, they charge ridiculously high prices for anyone to subscribe, claim the copyright on all submitted works, and are incredibly aggressive in enforcing that copyright. An academic I knew, at one point had to consider doing an experiment a second time just to get the same results, because mentioning the earlier results of his own study might violate the copyright of the journal. And, remember, much of this is happening with research that was funded by taxpayers.

So, Congress decided that any research that was funded by NIH (which funds about $30 billion in research each year) had to also be openly published one-year after it was published in the journal. It's hard to see how this damages the journals at all. They still retain a significant monopoly right on the works -- and have a year's head start. Yet, the journal publishers have been screaming bloody murder, and even trying to force academics to pay thousands of dollars to cover the "cost" of republishing the article in an open archiving database.

And, of course, those publishers have been complaining like crazy to Congress. Last year, Rep. Conyers (who also recently introduced the RIAA's preferred legislation, and was heavily backed by the American Intellectual Property Law Association in his most recent election) introduced some legislation to repeal this requirement, though the legislation went nowhere fast. However, he's wasted very little time introducing identical legislation this year.

Right before Conyers brought this legislation back, Stanford Professor John Willinsky published a well-worth reading article explaining why the publishers' objections to the requirement to openly publish makes no sense. Their general argument is that this is the government interfering with private businesses. But, of course, that's not true at all. As Willinsky notes, the only reason that particular private business exists as it does is because the government interfered in the form of giving them copyright:

What is held to be "unfair" in the bill is government interference with the publisher's exclusive ownership over research. This is not, however, a case of keeping the government's clumsy hand off a free market. The scholarly publishing market depends on government interference in the first instance. The government allows publishers to exercise monopoly rights over this research through copyright law, a form of market interference....

Furthermore, Willinsky mentions the original, Constitutional purpose behind said copyright: "To promote the progress of science and the useful arts..." Congress gets to determine what promotes the progress, and if it's shown that open publication of publicly funded works promotes that progress, then the journals should have no argument at all. But, argue they will... so, Public Knowledge and The Alliance for Taxpayer Access are both asking people to write their elected representatives to oppose this attempt to once again lock up the very research that we all funded as taxpayers.

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Are Scientific Journals Recognizing The Value Of Open Access Publishing?

from the that-would-be-good-news dept

We've had numerous articles over the years concerning the rise of "open access" scientific journals, which focus on making the research they publish openly available (usually online) to anyone who wants it, rather than the more traditional method of going through ridiculously expensive journals. This movement has certainly gained plenty of steam in the past fast years, even as many of the traditional publishers have done everything possible to fight it.

However, as SteveD points out to us, last week one of the big traditional publishers, Springer Science+Business Media acquired one of the more successful open access journals, BioMed Central, which has shown that it's possible to be an open access journal and profitable at the same time (wonders never cease). The author of the article notes, correctly, that it would certainly be a good thing if the old-line journals are finally recognizing that open access journals are an important and profitable part of scientific discussion, rather than just fighting them at every turn.

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Congress Not Shutting Down Open Access To NIH-Funded Research... Yet

from the but-keep-watching dept

Earlier this year, we wrote about how some research journals so hated the legal requirement that NIH-funded research be published openly in PubMed one year after published in a journal, that they were putting ridiculous hurdles in the way of researchers. The whole thing is actually a bit sickening. The NIH funds nearly $30 billion in research every year, using taxpayer money to pay for basic research, and these journals get free labor (researchers don't get paid by the journal, peer reviewers don't get paid by the journal) and then get paid to take the copyright away from the researcher (yes, the researcher has to hand over the copyright and still pay the journal for the privilege of publishing the content). This is a complete appropriation of taxpayer funded basic research that could be used to derive important advances in medicine and science -- and it's locked up by journals who want to protect an old business model.

So it caught our eye when a bunch of readers started submitting an Ars Technica piece about a bill from John Conyers, called The Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, which would forbid government agencies from making any research grants contingent on the work being published. As the writeup notes, this actually appears to have been more of a turf battle, where the House's subcommittee on IP was annoyed that the whole NIH thing didn't include them in the process. The complaints from publishers is fairly bogus. After all, they're receiving a ton of free benefits from federally funded research, and are whining that they can't come up with a business model and now need the gov't to protect their old business model (which actually stifles the dissemination of knowledge). Passing such a bill would be a horrible precedent, which is why so many folks are up in arms about it (without even getting into the bad unintended consequences).

However, for now, it looks like folks up in arms over this missed the fact that the bill is pretty much dead in the water this year. Right after the hearing last week, it was made clear that nothing is going to happen on it this year, and the bill's own sponsor, Rep. Conyers, seems a bit confused over his own support of the bill (he seems much more interested in the turf war over who has a say in the matter, than in what the bill actually means). That doesn't mean it's not worth paying attention to, as next year it could come back. But, for now, it's not going anywhere.

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A Public Official Actually Shows Common Sense in Wireless 'Piggybacking' Debate

from the we're-shocked dept

A state legislature has apparently introduced legislation that would make it a crime punishable by up to three years in jail to "steal" a neighbor's open wireless connection (found via Slashdot). The legislator claims that his goal in passing this legislation is to "clarify intentional theft vs. accidental use." Amazingly, someone in the Maryland government actually has some common sense. The state's public defender's office filed a statement making the same point that we've been making for years: "A more effective way to prevent unauthorized access would be for owners' (sic) to secure their wireless networks with assistance where necessary from Internet service providers or Vendors." Aside from the typo, we couldn't have put it better ourselves. They also point out that it won't always be easy to know if a particular user's usage of a wireless network is "intentional" or not because many non-technical users have no idea which network their computers are contacting. And, of course, some people leave their WiFi connections open on purpose. It seems better to err on the side of caution and not threaten people with multi-year jail terms for something that's basically harmless. The police certainly have more important things to be worrying about.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Verizon Wireless Responds To Competitive Pressures By Promising To Open Its Network

from the good-news dept

Verizon Wireless is making big headlines today by announcing that it intends to open up their network to third party devices next year. This is great news. As Columbia law professor Tim Wu documented in an excellent paper earlier this year, the mobile device market has long been hampered by the "tar pit of misery, pain, and destruction" that is the wireless carriers' process for approving mobile devices and software. Wu found that Verizon Wireless was one of the worst offenders, micromanaging which devices could be used on its networks and insisting the vendors cripple features like Bluetooth or WiFi that might undermine its own business strategies. In our write-up of Wu's paper, Carlo argued that Wu's heart was in the right place but that talk of "wireless network neutrality" regulations was premature, because sooner or later companies would be forced by competitive pressures to drop their walled gardens.

That appears to be happening surprisingly quickly. Back in February, Carlo noted that Verizon Wireless was the last hold-out for the old "walled garden" approach, with the other carriers having already taken steps to open their networks. Two recent announcements—Apple's iPhone and Google's Android—likely spurred Verizon Wireless to follow suit. The iPhone is far from an open device, but it is a clear example of what can be accomplished if a technology company is given the flexibility to design a mobile computer without having to kowtow to wireless carriers' whims. The success of the iPhone has put pressure on the other carriers to come up with a competitive response, and building a device as compelling as the iPhone almost requires that technologists be given a free hand in making design decisions Sprint and T-Mobile's support for Google's relatively open Android operating system strengthened the impression that Verizon Wireless was the last hold-out for the walled garden approach.

Today's announcement is a smart business decision for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the way to succeed in high-tech industries is to be the platform that other companies use to build their products and services. If Verizon follows through on its promises and opens up its network, it will dramatically reduce the time and frustration required to get a new device approved for use on Verizon's network. That will make it the logical partner for innovative small companies seeking to launch a new mobile device, service, or software product. It will also make Verizon Wireless an attractive partner for firms wanting to make non-phone mobile devices. This announcement also takes the wind out of the sails of advocates for government-mandated open networks. Verizon Wireless doubtless prefers to open its network on its own terms and its own schedule, instead of having its hand forced by government regulators.

There are still a lot of questions to be answered: most importantly, how much the bandwidth will cost. If it sets the price too high, it will be hard for Verizon Wireless' partners to make a profit. Additionally, we won't know until we see the exact terms how open their "open" network really will be. It wouldn't be the first time a technology company started using the word "open" to describe fundamentally non-open products. But if the terms and price turn out to be reasonable this announcement should provide a big boost to innovation in the wireless space in the coming years.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Wireless Piggybacking Is Still Not A Problem

from the victimless-crime dept

For years, we've been pointing out that there's nothing unethical about borrowing an open wireless connection. Unfortunately, the stories on this subject just keep getting more hysterical. The latest example is a story from the UK that dubs the offense "wi-fi tapping" and reports that more than half of computer users have engaged in the practice, which it claims is illegal in the UK. Now, you might think that the fact that a majority of otherwise law-abiding Brits have engaged in piggybacking would be a reason to re-consider the law against it, but instead the story takes the opposite tack, sternly lecturing readers about the need to abstain from borrowing Internet access. Unfortunately, they never get around to explaining what's supposed to be wrong with it. They point out that people sometimes do illegal things with a borrowed wi-fi connection, but that's like saying you should never allow anyone to borrow your car because they might run someone over with it. And they insist that it's not a victimless crime because "A crime is perpetrated against the person who pays for the internet connection." But that's just circular logic. It's quite possible the owner of the network left it open on purpose, and in any event, if the piggybacker is just checking his email or engaging in light web surfing, the bandwidth being consumed is trivial. The "victim" is unlikely to even notice, and he certainly doesn't suffer any serious harm. Of course, there might be legitimate reasons, either security- or bandwidth-related, why someone would want to lock down his or her network. It's certainly worthwhile to educate users about the pros and cons of leaving your network open, and to provide them with directions for locking down their network if they wish to do so. But the police have much more important things to do than harassing people whose only crime is a compulsive need to check their email.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Verizon Decides It Doesn't Like Open-Access Wireless Rules After All

from the damn-competition dept

Discussion of the upcoming auction for licenses for 700 MHz spectrum has been dominated by the desire of Google and other groups to have "open-access" rules put in place. These rules would force license winners to sell wholesale access to their networks, allow any compatible device to be used on them, and follow net neutrality principles. The FCC paid some lip service to the issue by attaching just two of the conditions (net neutrality and allowing the use of any compatible device) to just a portion of the spectrum, and adding that the conditions will be dropped and the auction for the relevant licenses restarted without them if a reserve price of $4.6 billion isn't met. This was a political show that made it look like the FCC was taking some action, but the likely overall impact on the market will be minimal. Perhaps what made it clear that the rules were toothless and wouldn't have much competitive impact was the fact that incumbent telcos AT&T and Verizon voiced some support for them. But it would appear Google execs' comments that the company will "probably" bid on the spectrum, even though the FCC didn't adopt all its proposed principles has spooked Verizon, as the telco is now suing the FCC, saying it overstepped its authority in putting the conditions on the licenses.

When it looked like the open-access rules wouldn't have any effect, and that the auction for the licenses with them wouldn't attract enough buyers to hit that $4.6 billion reserve price, Verizon went the politically and PR-expedient route and voiced its support for them. Now that it looks like Google's going to be ready to pounce on the spectrum and pay the reserve price, Verizon contends the rules are illegal. Without the involvement of Google or another deep-pocketed bidder, Verizon could wait for the auction to restart without the rules, then pick up the spectrum free from the open-access rules. Since it looks like Google will bid up to the reserve price, Verizon faces the prospect of getting caught in a bidding war with the company, and should it win, it would have to operate any network in the spectrum with the open-access rules -- which it clearly doesn't want to do.

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Jury Out On The Impact Of 700 MHz Spectrum Auction Rules

from the new-spectrum-same-players dept

The talk around the upcoming 700 MHz spectrum license auctions continues. After Google's CEO earlier this week said the company would "probably" bid in the auction, even though the FCC didn't implement the open-access provisions Google wanted, a couple of divergent opinions on the auction's impact on the telecom landscape have come out. On the one hand, former FCC bigwig Blair Levin says the auction isn't likely to result in a new nationwide mobile operator; on the other, a "source at a major cellular company" says the auction isn't attractive for incumbent operators. Who to believe? As usual, the truth in somewhere in the middle, but we're more inclined to take Levin's view of things. Incumbent operators will likely shy away from the 22 MHz of spectrum with open-access rules -- not just because they don't want to operate under the restrictions, but also because if the auction for those licenses fails to generate $4.6 billion, the open-access rules will be lifted, and the auction will start over. Once it hits $4.6 billion on that first go-around, though, operators will bid because there's simply too much spectrum on offer to ignore it. Their choice of technology could render the open-access rules useless, really -- after all, if they pick a proprietary or unpopular technology for their network, they'll be the only people selling compatible devices for it. When you get down to brass tacks, the incumbent operators are going to spend whatever's necessary to acquire the spectrum, despite what anonymous sources within them say. Spectrum in general is their lifeblood, and this 700 MHz spectrum in particular has too many positive attributes for mobile broadband for them to pass up. They'll bid aggressively to defend their turf, and if anybody is going to unseat them, it's going to take a hell of a lot of investment.

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Google CEO Says It Will 'Probably' Bid On Spectrum Licenses

from the here-comes-the-cash dept

Google has been making noise for some time about getting its hands on some wireless spectrum licenses. It's been behind a push to get the FCC to institute "open access" rules for license winners in the upcoming auction of 700 MHz spectrum, and the FCC implemented a couple of rather meaningless conditions to certain licenses in the auction. Google's main goal was to get the FCC to force license winners to offer wholesale access to their networks to anyone who wanted to buy it -- making it clear that Google's real interest isn't in acquiring spectrum licenses and building a network of its own, but rather having the ability to buy wholesale network access, and to do so in a competitive market. Google's push to get the FCC to create this market for free failed; now, Google's CEO says the company will "probably" bid in the auction. If Google were to win some licenses, it could choose to lease them to network operators in exchange for network access, with whatever conditions it wants to attach. This could achieve the same end result -- a marketplace with several bidders competing for Google's business -- as the getting the FCC to mandate open access. Obviously Google would rather have gone down that route than having to shell out several billion dollars for the licenses. Either way, don't expect Google to begin building its own physical network, but its motives in acquiring and redistributing access either as a virtual operator or in some other way are clear.

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Can We Please Stop Arresting WiFi Users Using Open Networks?

from the thanks dept

We've had a bunch of stories over the last few years of people getting arrested for using open WiFi access and we still can't understand what crime has actually been committed. Unfortunately, yet another person in the UK has now been arrested for using an open WiFi network, after police saw him sitting on a wall with a laptop and asked him what he was doing. Apparently, in the UK, they consider it a violation of a communications law and a computer misuse law, but neither makes much sense. If the guy isn't physically trespassing and the owner of the WiFi has it open, then what's the problem? You can't assume that the owner wanted it closed. If they did, they would have closed it. It's the access point owner's own fault if they're not securing the WiFi. Since all it is is radio waves, we're again left wondering if police will start arresting people who use the light shining from inside a house to read something out on the street. After all, that's basically the same thing: making use of either light or radio waves that were emitted from within the house, but are reaching public areas.

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FCC Chairman Talks Up Open-Access Wireless Networks

from the different-tune dept

Just last month, we noted how FCC Chairman Kevin Martin sounds like a broken record when it comes to telecom policy, always covering the same ground with his same old ideas of what constitutes a competitive market. Maybe the summer heat has gotten to him, but he's now gone and changed all that, as he's getting ready to propose dramatic new rules for the upcoming 700 MHz wireless spectrum license auction, mandating that winners of licenses for a third of the spectrum build open-access networks -- networks that allow any compatible device to connect and for any service to be run across them. The 700 MHz spectrum is pretty prime real estate, as these things go: there's a lot of spectrum that will be available, and the low frequency gives it excellent propagation and building-penetration characteristics. There's been a lot of talk from tech companies and other groups about handling these licenses differently than previous ones, in order to encourage the development of broadband wireless networks that offer real competition to fixed-line networks. Typically, this entails mandating that license winners build wholesale networks which sell access to any service provider that wants to then sell the service on to consumers. While Martin's draft of rules doesn't go that far, it does offer a significant change to how wireless spectrum licenses have typically been sold and regulated. Unsurprisingly, the trade group of cellular operators isn't happy, and says that there's no need to regulate what it sees as a perfectly competitive marketplace. Whether or not the cell phone service market is competitive is an argument for another day, but it's pretty clear that as things stand now, it doesn't have much of a competitive impact on the broadband market, which is still largely a duopoly of cable and telephone companies. The operators hope to use their deep pockets to buy up as much spectrum as possible -- not just to use it themselves, but to keep it out of the hands of any potential new entrants that could come into the market and actually compel them to compete.

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