NEWS & PERSPECTIVE

Public Library of Science, raising the quality/prestige bar for OA journals; Jefferson’s Taper in the and related developments. OA has gathered adherents and institutional support without yet dislodging com- Digital Hall of Mirrors mercial journals. (One epiphenom- enon of the OA movement, the Paywalls, Data Walls, and the Progress of proliferation of low-value, fee-based, often fraud-riddled “predatory jour- nals,” was discussed in these pages 5 years ago by Harnad and others.10) by WILLIAM B. MILLARD, PhD practices, and other mechanisms, The same publishers that strike most particularly the familiar and much- Special Contributor to of the Paywall commentators as Annals News & Perspective resented paywall, to enrich themselves problematic are also embracing the disproportionately to the detriment of ’ logic of OA: * publishes n history s annals of bad guesses, global scholars, the economic health of Forbes greater than 170 OA journals and the 1995 prediction in that libraries and universities, the free flow of I the Internet would destroy aca- greater than 1,850 hybrid journals, information, and the public good. offers OA options in the categories of demic publishing (particularly Reed It is unusual for a documentary to ’ gold (publication in a fee-supported Elsevier, as the world s largest aca- have measurable effects on the business 1 OA journal) and green (publication demic publisher was then known) performance of its subject. Still, the Daily anywhere, with a copy self-archived in stands alongside the Chicago scholar-journalist behind the film is Tribune’ “ ” a repository) OA, and describes itself s Dewey Defeats bemused by the possibility that his ’ as “one of the leading open access headline and Decca Records rejection work is serving as a catalyst not only for 11 ’ publishers.” of the Beatles audition on the expanded debate but also for tangible grounds that “guitar groups are on “ fi Although the robber baron role for consequences. Within the rst 10 fi the way out.” fi Elsevier in the lm is clear, Dr. days after our lm came out, there was Schmitt acknowledged that the firm Instead of collapsing after online a 13% decline in Elsevier stocks,” distribution appeared, commercial Paywall’ pursues an aim he and his in- noted s producer, director, terviewees share, the wide dissemina- academic journals became an even and narrator Jason Schmitt, PhD, chair tion of knowledge, while operating bigger business, now worth an esti- of communication and media at under different assumptions about the mated $25 billion in the United Clarkson University in Potsdam, NY. status of knowledge as private prop- States alone. Major scientific pub- “UBS [the former Union Bank of ’ erty. He approached Elsevier for lishers return on investment is in the Switzerland],” he added, “switched “ ” comments, he pointed out, offering a range of 35% to 40%, outstripping their designation from hold to sell. fi the comparable metric for the likes of 5-minute section of that lm that Apple, Amazon, and Google, let alone would be 100% within their creative firms in sectors less prone to monop- ROBBER BARONS AND control, that I would have no juris- olies and oligopolies than information ROBIN HOOD diction over. But I think they felt it was in their best interest not to do technology. ome fluctuations in market vari- that, and that’s fine. If I was them, The journal industry’sprofitmargin ables are transient; others may I’m sure I would make that same has also inspired a steady stream of S signal a sea change that Paywall’s decision, and at the end of the day, scathing critiques.2-4 One of the most commentators and others regard as Elsevier is full of really intelligent recent, the film Paywall: The Business of justified, long brewing, and inevi- Scholarship (2018),5 marshals greater table. The open access (OA) alterna- * than 70 authoritative commentators in a tive has been available for decades, at To preserve editorial and commentator inde- pendence—journalism’s traditional “church/ battalion of talking heads, denouncing least since cognitive scientist Stevan state wall” separating the editorial and owner- commercialpublishersasprofiteers who Harnad’s, MA, PhD, “subversive ship sides of a publication—I purposefully have used high subscription prices, proposal” in the early 1990s6-9; refrained from consulting Elsevier, Annals’ “ ” ’ publisher, while informing commentators that cable-service-style big deal bundling physicist Paul Ginsparg s, PhD, 1991 this article would be written and edited without of journals, secretive bargaining founding of arXiv.org; the rise of the influence from the firm.

Volume 73, no. 5 : May 2019 Annals of Emergency Medicine 15A NEWS & PERSPECTIVE people that are trying to do good Bibsam15 broke down last summer, are aware of (even with the oppor- things.” researchers lost access to the firm’s tunity and inclination to read terms Paywall aims to extend the case for materials; their backup plans for ac- of service in fine-print legalese), and OA beyond the academic setting, cess included interlibrary loans and that none has the option of negoti- addressing audiences not yet familiar requesting copies from authors. A ating. If “data is the new oil,” as with the origins of scientific pub- faster method, farther outside the commentators on big data have lishing with the Royal Society or the commercial publishing realm alto- noted19—valuable, but in need of anomalous economics of research. gether, is Sci-Hub, the pirate archive processing to be useful—the data Reviewing Paywall in The Lancet, established in 2011 by Kazakhstani wall makes the reader of OA Richard Smith, CBE FMedSci, former hacker Alexandra Elbakyan. research an unwitting worker on the editor of The BMJ, observed that the Offering illicit access to the ma- analytic oil rig, raises questions 13% decrease in Elsevier’s share price jority of the world’s copyrighted sci- about who has the rights to its may have had less to do with the film entific research16 has put Elbakyan in value, and creates potentials for than with the coincident September the gunsights of the legal de- spillage. 2018 launch of , a new partments of both Elsevier and the The concept of openness in infor- requirement that all research funded American Chemical Society, which mation science, Ms. Janicke Hin- by participating European public and have successfully sued her in US chliffe emphasized, is far from binary foundation sources be published in courts for multimillion-dollar dam- and includes a considerable amount of OA journals or repositories by ages; she is currently in hiding, nuance. To individuals of libertarian 2020.12,13 The Wellcome Trust, the dodging extradition.17 or anarchistic persuasions who offer Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Stewart Brand’s well-circulated and other funders, Dr. Schmitt aphorism “Information wants to be THE DATA WALL MODEL: pointed out, are among institutions free,” she recommends reading the QUID PRO WHOM? with similar policies. “next phrase that came right after Funders’ pressure is one force aywalls may recede as a way for that. ‘Information wants to be free, driving scholarly communications to- researchers and readers outside but information also wants to be ward OA. Another is the squeeze on P subscribing institutions to get expensive.’”20 The tendency of infor- libraries’ resources, money and access to scholarship, but another mation to flow (often around legal patience alike. Brandon Butler, JD, method—perhaps just as annoying borders) and its capability of being director of information policy at the and potentially insidious—has arisen valuable (and thus associated with University of Virginia Library (not a in their wake. Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, some form of price) are in constant Paywall interviewee), observed that MS, professor and coordinator for tension. the high cost of journals in the sci- information-literacy services and in- Ms. Janicke Hinchliffe explicitly ence/technology/engineering/mathe- struction in the University Library at rejected the Sci-Hub approach that matics fields has unsustainable the University of Illinois at Urbana- resolves the Brandian tension by consequences across disciplines. “The Champaign, has observed that OA wresting the public good of research humanities have just been squeezed materials frequently involve some va- out of the copyrightable-property really badly, in terms of budgets from riety of data wall: a request to create paradigm by stealth. “Sci-Hub is a libraries that can go toward support- an account or obtain a “free” sub- pirate site, and they are stealing ing monographs,” he said. “So what scription, with a demand for an e- copy,” she said. Data walls, less you’ve actually seen is a huge divest- mail address or other contact obstructive than paywalls and less ment from monographs by libraries information.18 adversarial than litigation, are poten- because funding has been sucked up Such a moment reveals the subtly tially a legal, lower-friction, market- by [science/technology/engineering/ transactional nature of an encounter based solution to the problems mathematics] journals.” in which no money formally changes Paywall spotlights. Yet in an online Some readers have also found al- hands: the reader still gives the environment in which lapses in the ternatives to paywalls, legal and publisher something of value, a protection of personal information are otherwise. In Germany and Sweden, combination of time and personal common, readers may be wary about where negotiations between Elsevier information. The latter will be used various consequences of the trans- and the respective national research for data tracking, analysis, and action a data wall imposes, including consortia Projekt DEAL14 and reporting, processes that few readers the risks of theft of information.

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“Libraries take great care to put .If nature has made any one thing copyright for 300 years, since the effort into protecting your privacy,” less susceptible than all others of Statute of Anne in 1709.” Ms. Janicke Hinchliffe noted, “and so exclusive property, it is the action of Overcoming the opposition of we may know what you accessed, but the thinking power called an idea, commercial publishers, who are “just we don’t commercialize that.” Ana- which an individual may exclusively screaming” about the European Plan lytics firms and other parties seeking possessaslongashekeepsitto S, will require some form of coercion. access to data—she cited insurance himself; but the moment it is By analogy to the transition to companies and attorneys as salient divulged, it forces itself into the renewable energy, Dr. Butler some- examples—have different aims. She possession of every one, and sees publishers as “similar to the conjectured that physicians, in receiver cannot dispossess himself of petroleum companies. Exxon is abso- particular, have grounds for caution. it. Its peculiar character, too, is that lutely investing in all kinds of In situations in which medical out- no one possesses the less, because different modes of energy generation, comes are adverse and litigation en- every other possesses the whole of it. but they are not going to switch until sues, would plaintiffs’ attorneys “be He who receives an idea from they’ve got every last drop of oil out able to subpoena what articles you me, receives instruction himself of the ground.” The data wall model, looked at on the Elsevier site? Every without lessening mine; as he who he predicted, represents a transitional place you click that’s attached to you, lights his taper at mine, receives stage among various forms of resis- you’re leaving a trail. And now maybe light without darkening me.22 tance to a fully OA future on the part a physician could also use that to of commercial publishers. The unextinguished candle flame defend themselves and say, ’No, look, of an idea whose discoverer commu- I read every article that’s available on nicates it to others, according to WE CREATED IT: LET’S TAKE this topic.’ But the flip side is, they the traditions and precedents of IT OVER subpoena, and they say, ’You didn’t intellectual-property law, is beyond even do any research on this topic.’ I hat would a system that ownership. In this context, Dr. Butler am not one to spin out conspiracy transmitted, magnified, and also paraphrased Justice Louis Bran- theories, but I am going to ask the W spread the light of research as deis to the effect that “a fact once it’s question of what happens when your freely and rationally as possible, rather discovered, and once it’s disclosed, access is being tracked on third-party † than controlled it with coin-operated is as free as air to common use.”23 platforms that may or may not have lampshades, look like? Dr. Butler Copyright law, Dr. Butler continued, the same interest that you or your pointed to the arguments of Björn separates factual knowledge from its patients have.” Hospitals may be Brembs, PhD, professor of neuro- particular expression: the latter can be concerned that data tracking creates genetics at the University of Regens- protected, but the former cannot. organizational liability as well. “We burg in Germany, a PLoS One The Constitution’s copyright will never know,” she said, “until academic editor, and a proponent of clause established temporary exclu- someone files a lawsuit.” replacing the current journal model sivity not because ideas are their dis- altogether. Dr. Butler summarized coverers’ absolute property, such as Dr. Brembs’s position succinctly: THE PECULIAR CHARACTER land or personal possessions, but on “Journals are bad infrastructure. Why OF LIGHT consequentialist grounds to create don’t we have our own infrastructure? practical incentives. he University of Virginia’s Dr. It could be so much better if we built “From a copyright-law perspec- Butler looks to his university’s it ourselves. It would belong to us. I tive,” Dr. Butler added, “the only T founder, Thomas Jefferson, for a find that vision really compelling.. reason to let someone control the key principle in the development of The odds of our successfully protect- circulation of information is.to give intellectual-property law: that ideas ing [intellectual and democratic] them a reason to create it. And so this are nonexcludable social entities values go up if we can take that has been the justification for and, once communicated, cannot infrastructure out of the hands of coherently be conceived as property at †The verbatim quotation from Justice Brandeis commercial entities. That is, if we all. A much-quoted metaphor, which is “The general rule of law is, that the noblest of consider the sharing and publication Dr. Butler cited in a recent debate human productions—knowledge, truths ascer- of knowledge to be something that 21 ’ tained, conceptions, and ideas—become, after over OA, appears in Jefferson s voluntary communication to others, free as the the academy does for itself, and is correspondence: air to common use.” responsible for, the odds of our

Volume 73, no. 5 : May 2019 Annals of Emergency Medicine 17A NEWS & PERSPECTIVE following our values in protecting criteria such as retraction rates, statistical about readers, publishers serve as to- academics, and protecting academic power, and reproducibility.27 Incentives day’s equivalent of the original, freedom, are much better than they to publish in the name-recognition nonmetaphorical robber barons, the will be if it’s a publicly traded com- journals skew more toward novelty and late-13th-century feudal landowners pany that’s beholden only to its riskiness than methodologic rigor, he along the Rhine who charged extor- shareholders.” observed; hence, the recurrent crises of tionate tolls for shipping past their Dr. Brembs spoke of his recom- irreproducible results and embarrassing, land. The obstruction of Rhine ship- mended paradigm in terms that attention-getting retractions. Re- ping was unsustainable; the obstruc- resemble those of arXiv.org,Public searchers in search of high-visibility tion of scientific communication may Library of Science, Brazil’s Scientific relative-risk percentages and P values turn out likewise. Electronic Library Online, and similar are massaging their data beyond respon- “If we really changed the way we repositories, with a nod to Harnad’s sible or reproducible interpretation. think about information and aca- subversive proposal, but with addi- Given this “negative correlation” demic values that feed that informa- tional features that streamline the between journal rank and article tion ecosystem,” Dr. Butler posting and assessment of material. The quality, Dr. Brembs would abandon suggested, “we’d see a lot of changes, chief challenge, Dr. Brembs empha- journals as we know them in favor of not just getting out from behind sized, is not wall-obstructed access. an OA, open-source infrastructure paywalls. We might see a different Through existing and emerging OA that would allow researchers to assess kind of peer review. We might see a mechanisms, he found that researchers’ the quality of articles through a different kind of promotion and and readers’ inability to obtain articles badging system, creating a quantita- tenure process. A lot of those things is a diminishing problem.24 (His rec- tive long-range review process that need to change. The paywalls are just ommended mechanisms include Sci- would answer questions that the an egregious outgrowth of this pretty Hub,25 whose value as a civilly existing arrangements leave in the messed-up system.” disobedient, Robin Hood–style liber- dark, such as the outcomes of article- ator of material that should never have acceptance decisions. “The level of Section editor: Truman J. Milling, Jr, been imprisoned by copyright in the functionality that we currently have MD first place, he argued, far outweighs its for the content that we create is so Funding and support: By Annals pol- possible offenses in acquiring the ma- abysmally low,” Dr. Brembs asserted, icy, all authors are required to disclose terial. Absent independent confirma- “it’s almost impossible to make it any any and all commercial, financial, and tion of accusations of phishing and worse. So almost any modernization other relationships in any way related hacking, he said, “I would take all of will just make it easier and better.” to the subject of this article as per these allegations with a grain of salt, He recognizes that certain features ICMJE conflict of interest guidelines just as the poor person on the street who of existing journals, such as the per- (see www.icmje.org). The author has just got some money from Robin Hood sonal vision of editors who have stated that no such relationships exist. would also ask twice if [the Sheriff of earned authority with readers and The views expressed in News and Nottingham] would put up an peers, are likely to be valued enough Perspective are those of the authors, announcement saying that Robin to survive the transformation, and do not reflect the views and Hood, while he was stealing money, perhaps as optional “human-based opinions of the American College of broke some guard’snose.”) The greater filtering” at a premium; no algorithm Emergency Physicians or the editorial problem, Dr. Brembs said, is that the is likely to replace an Arnold Rel- board of Annals of Emergency commercial journal system produces so man, a Fiona Godlee, or a Drum- Medicine. many irrational and perverse incentives. mond Rennie. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annemergmed. A key observation, Dr. Brembs said, is At the heart of the dissatisfaction 2019.03.013 that the work appearing in high-ranking Dr. Brembs, Dr. Butler, and other OA journals (as measured by Impact Factor, proponents express toward journal REFERENCES 1. Hayes JR. The Internet’s first victim? the Clarivate Analytics [formerly publishers is the question of whether Forbes. 1995;156:200-201. Thomson ] instrument that he those organizations add any real value 2. Van Noorden R. Open access: the true cost and others regard as grossly flawed,26 but to justify their extraordinary revenue. of science publishing. Nature. that remains a commonly recognized Perhaps by erecting paywalls blocking 2013;495:426-429. 3. Buranyi S. Is the staggeringly profitable metric of journal rank) is more likely, not the flow of knowledge and then data business of scientific publishing bad for less, to be low in quality when assessed by walls commoditizing information science?. Available at: https://www.

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theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/ https://www.elsevier.com/about/open- quotation available at: https://quote profitable-business-scientific-publishing- science/open-access/surprising-facts. investigator.com/2018/03/09/info/. bad-for-science. Published June 27, 2017. Accessed December 1, 2018. Accessed December 1, 2018. Accessed November 30, 2018. 12. Smith R. The business of academic 21. Butler B, Cochrane A. Brandon Butler, 4. Couzin-Frankel J. “Journalologists” use publishing: “a catastrophe.” Lancet. director of information policy, University of scientific methods to study academic 2018;392:1186-1187. Virginia Library, declared the winner of the publishing. Is their work improving 13. Rabesandratana T. European funders Hyde Park debate. Charleston Library science? Science. 2018;361:1180-1183. detail their open-access plan. Science. Conference, October 31, 2018. Available 5. Schmitt J, director. Paywall: The Business of 2018;362:983. at: https://www.against-the-grain.com/ Scholarship. Available at: https://paywall 14. Else H. Dutch publishing giant cuts off 2018/11/atg-newsflash-brandon-butler- themovie.com and https://vimeo.com/ researchers in Germany and Sweden. director-of-information-policy-university-of- 273358286. Accessed November 30, Nature. 2018;559:454-455. virginia-library-declared-the-winner-of-the- 2018. 15. Yeager A. Sweden cancels agreement with hyde-park-debate/. Accessed December 1, 6. Harnad S. Scholarly skywriting and the Elsevier over open access. Available at: 2018. prepublication continuum of scientific https://www.the-scientist.com/the-nutshell/ 22. Jefferson T. Letter to Isaac McPherson, inquiry. Curr Contents. 1991;45:9-13. sweden-cancels-agreement-with-elsevier- August 13, 1813. In: Lipscomb AA, 7. Harnad S. Post-Gutenberg galaxy: the over-open-access-64405. Published May Bergh AE, eds. The Writings of Thomas fourth revolution in the means of 16, 2018. Accessed December 1, 2018. Jefferson. 20 vols. Washington, DC: production of knowledge. PACS Rev. 16. Himmelstein DS, Romero AR, Levernier JG, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association; 1991;2:39-53. et al. Sci-Hub provides access to nearly 1905;13:333-335. 8. Harnad S. Ethics of open access to all scholarly literature. eLife. 2018;7: 23. International News Service v Associated biomedical research: just a special case of e32822. Press, 248 US 215 (1918). ethics of open access to research. Philos 17. Bohannon J. Who’s downloading pirated 24. Brembs B. So your institute went cold Ethics Humanit Med. 2007;2:31. papers? everyone. Science. turkey on publisher X. What now?. 9. Harnad S. Subversive proposal: proposal 2016;35:508-512. Available at: http://bjoern.brembs.net/ for presentation to Network Service 18. Hinchliffe LJ. From paywall to datawall. 2016/12/so-your-institute-went-cold- Conference, London, Nov 28-30 1994. Available at: https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet. turkey-on-publisher-x-what-now/. Published Available at: https://groups.google.com/ org/2018/10/11/from-paywall-to-datawall/. December 20, 2016. Accessed December forum/?hl¼en#!topic/bit.listserv.vpiej-l/ Published October 11, 2018. Accessed 2, 2018. BoKENhK0_00. Accessed November 30, November 30, 2018. 25. Brembs B. Sci-Hub as necessary, 2018. 19. Arthur C. Tech giants may be huge, but effective civil disobedience. Published 10. Millard WB. Some research wants to be nothing matches big data. Available at: February 25, 2016. Accessed November free, some follows the money: bogus https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ 30, 2018. journals complicate the open access 2013/aug/23/tech-giants-data. Published 26. PLoS Medicine. The impact factor game. movement. Ann Emerg Med. August 23, 2013. Accessed December 2, PLoS Med. 2005;3:e291. 2013;62:A14-A20. 2018. 27. Brembs B, Button K, Munafò M. Deep 11. Elsevier. Spotlight on open access: 5 20. Brand S. The Media Lab: Inventing the impact: unintended consequences of surprising facts you may not know about Future at MIT. , NY: Viking; journal rank. Front Hum Neurosci. Elsevier and open access. Available at: 1987:202. Multiple variants of the 2013;7:291-303.

bag full of empty medication bot- tles—medicine that she hadn’t taken Climate Change and the for days. Most hospitals in Puerto Rico were out of commission, largely because of power outages, or inundated Emergency Department with injured and sick people. Similar scenarios would later play out in Hospitals Shrink Their Carbon Footprint, Prepare for Climate during an unprecedented Refugees outbreak in wildfires. It occurred to Dr. Salas that this was the shape of things to come. “It’s not going to be just climate refugees in by ALAN HUFFMAN fall of 2017, the patient revealed that far-off countries,” she said. “Already, she had been displaced by the recent Special Contributor to climate change is displacing Annals News & Perspective devastation wrought by Hurricane Americans.” Maria in Puerto Rico. s Renee Salas, MD, MS, was An emergency physician at Massa- The woman had come to the ED treating an elderly woman in the chusetts General Hospital and Harvard straight from the airport, with a single A emergency department (ED) at Medical School, and a physician- piece of luggage and a worn plastic Massachusetts General Hospital in the investigator of climate change and

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