In
calling for research papers to be made freely available open access advocates
promised that doing so would lead to a simpler, less costly, more democratic,
and more effective scholarly communication system.
To achieve their objectives
they proposed two different ways of providing open access: green OA (self-archiving) and gold
OA (open access
publishing).
However, while the OA movement has succeeded in persuading research
institutions and funders of the merits of open access, it has failed to win the
hearts and minds of most researchers.
More importantly, it is not achieving its
objectives. There are various reasons for this, but above all it is because OA
advocates underestimated the extent to which copyright would subvert their
cause. That is the argument I make in the text I link to below, and I include a
personal case study that demonstrates the kind of problems copyright poses for
open access.
I also argue that in underestimating the extent to which copyright would
be a barrier to their objectives, OA advocates have enabled legacy publishers
to appropriate the movement for their own benefit, rather than for the benefit
of the research community, and to pervert both the practice and the concept of
open access.
As usual, it is a long document and I have published it in a pdf file
that can be accessed here.
I have inserted a link to the case study at the top for those who might
wish only to read that.
For those who prefer paper, a print version is available here.
