CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Santa Clara University School of Law Santa Clara Law Review Volume 53 | Number 2 Article 3 8-22-2013 Confronting the Crisis in Scientific Publishing: Latency, Licensing, and Access Jorge L. Contreras Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/lawreview Recommended Citation Jorge L. Contreras, Confronting the Crisis in Scientific Publishing: Latency, Licensing, and Access, 53 Santa Clara L. Rev. 491 (2013). Available at: http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/lawreview/vol53/iss2/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Santa Clara Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Santa Clara Law Review by an authorized administrator of Santa Clara Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 3_CONTRERAS FINAL.DOC 7/23/2013 9:25 PM CONFRONTING THE CRISIS IN SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING: LATENCY, LICENSING, AND ACCESS Jorge L. Contreras* TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ........................................................................... 492 I. The Making of a Crisis ...................................................... 498 A. The Traditional Model of Scientific Publishing .... 498 B. The (New) Economics of Scientific Publishing ..... 502 1. Cost ................................................................... 502 2. Revenue ............................................................ 503 3. The Journal Pricing Debate ............................. 505 C. Leveraging Copyright ........................................... 508 1. Why Copyright Matters ................................... 508 2. Author’s Assignment of Rights ........................ 511 3. Copyright Duration .......................................... 512 II. Addressing the Crisis Through Copyright Reform .......... 514 A. Abolishing Academic Copyright? .......................... 514 B. The Challenge of Tailoring Copyright Term ........ 516 1. Effectiveness .................................................... 518 2. Administrability ............................................... 520 3. Political Economy ............................................. 521 III. Responses in the Shadow of Copyright: The Open Access Movement ......................................................... 525 A. The Rise of Open Access........................................ 525 * Associate Professor, American University, Washington College of Law; J.D. Harvard Law School; B.S.E.E., B.A. Rice University. The author would like to thank Jonathan Baker, Harold Burstyn, Michael Carroll, Dan Cole, Brett Frischmann, John Golden, Eric Goldman, Mark Janis, Kimberly Kaphingst, Chuck McManis, Eric Priest, David Snyder, Arlene Zank, and the late Elinor Ostrom for their helpful comments, suggestions, and discussion, as well as the participants in the 2012 Junior Scholars in Intellectual Property Conference at Michigan State University, the Business Faculty Workshop at American University Washington College of Law and the Colloquium at Indiana University’s Workshop on Political Theory and Policy Analysis. An earlier draft of this paper was featured on Hearsay Culture hosted by David S. Levine. Show 157, KZSU-FM—STANFORD UNIVERSITY (Feb. 17, 2012), http://cyberlaw. stanford.edu/podcasts/20120217_Levine_157_Contreras.mp3. 491 3_CONTRERAS FINAL.DOC 7/23/2013 9:25 PM 492 SANTA CLARA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 53 B. Modes of Open Access Publication ........................ 526 1. Self-Archiving—The Green Route ................... 526 2. Open Access Journals—The Gold Route ......... 528 3. Voluntary Time-Delayed Open Access ............ 532 4. Institutional Open Access Mandates ............... 533 IV. From Movement to Mandate........................................... 534 A. Funder and Agency Open Access Mandates ......... 534 B. Vulnerabilities of Agency Mandates ..................... 538 1. National Open Access? ..................................... 538 2. Limited Copyright Permissions ....................... 540 3. Political Uncertainty ........................................ 542 V. Commons and Latency in Scientific Publishing .............. 542 A. Science Commons .................................................. 543 B. Optimizing Latency ............................................... 546 VI. Toward a Privately-Ordered Solution ............................. 548 A. The Role and Nature of Private Ordering ............ 549 B. The Problem of Collective Action .......................... 551 C. A Private Ordering Proposal: A One-Year Latency-Based License .......................................... 554 D. Evaluating the Latency-Based License as a Tailoring Solution ................................................. 557 1. Effectiveness .................................................... 558 i. As compared to assignment of copyright to the publisher .......................................... 558 ii. As compared to a zero-copyright regime .... 561 iii. As compared to existing OA models .......... 562 2. Administrability ............................................... 563 3. Political Economy ............................................. 564 E. Collective Action and Changing Norms ................ 565 1. Drafting a Consensus-Based License .............. 565 2. Achieving Adoption—Nudging Norms ............ 567 i. Following the Leader ................................. 568 ii. Following the Money .................................. 568 iii. Emphasizing (Individual) Efficiencies ....... 569 3. Precedents in Law and Licensing .................... 570 F. Broader Implications—Latency Beyond Science .. 573 Conclusion ............................................................................. 574 INTRODUCTION In February 2012, more than 5700 individuals boycotted a leading multinational corporation and successfully derailed a legislative initiative that would have significantly 1 benefitted the industry. Who were the individuals 1. Thomas Lin, Mathematicians Organize Boycott of a Publisher, N.Y. TIMES, February 14, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/science/ researchers-boycott-elsevier-journal-publisher.html?_r=0. 3_CONTRERAS FINAL.DOC 7/23/2013 9:25 PM 2013] THE CRISIS IN SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING 493 responsible for this remarkable demonstration of grassroots political muscle? Environmental activists? Opponents of corporate globalization? Self-proclaimed representatives of the ninety-nine percent? No, the group that successfully stared down this multi-billion dollar global enterprise consisted mostly of mathematicians and other natural scientists.2 The focus of their boycott: Elsevier, the world’s largest publisher of scientific journals.3 Led by some of the most prominent names in mathematics, the protesters objected to Elsevier’s spiraling prices and its push to abolish a policy whereby scientific articles funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) are made publicly available.4 The boycott pressured Elsevier to withdraw its support for the bill, called the Research Works Act, and ultimately led to its demise.5 Though the proposed Research Works Act was the immediate cause of the Elsevier boycott, the uprising by scientists is symptomatic of a much deeper and longer conflict within the scientific community. As observed by Ingrid Daubechies, president of the International Mathematical Union, the boycott arose because the “social compact [between scientists and publishers] is broken.”6 In the 1940s, sociologist Robert K. Merton famously identified four fundamental norms that characterize both the practice and culture of science. Among these is the willingness of scientists to share their discoveries and findings freely.7 While the motivations that lead scientists to share, as well as the practical difficulties inherent in this activity, have been debated since Merton’s day, there is little argument that the accessibility of scientific findings is critical to the advancement of scientific progress.8 In addition, the 2. Id. 3. Id. 4. Research Works Act, H.R. 3699, 112th Cong. (2011) (introduced by Representatives Issa and Maloney on December 16, 2011). 5. The bill’s co-sponsors withdrew it in February 2012. Jennifer Howard, Legislation to Bar Public-Access Requirement on Federal Research is Dead, CHRON. HIGHER ED., Feb. 27, 2012, http://chronicle.com/article/Legislation-to- Bar/130949/. 6. Lin, supra note 1. 7. ROBERT K. MERTON, The Normative Structure of Science (1942), in THE SOCIOLOGY OF SCIENCE 267–78 (Norman W. Storer ed., 1973). 8. Such acknowledgements abound in the literature. E.g., Scott Aaronson 3_CONTRERAS FINAL.DOC 7/23/2013 9:25 PM 494 SANTA CLARA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 53 sharing of data enables scientists to validate and independently verify the findings, analyses, and conclusions of their colleagues.9 As a result, the sharing of scientific information contributes to overall social welfare.10 But despite the acknowledged importance of sharing scientific information, the ability of scientists to access information relevant to their fields has come under increasing pressure. The most prominent means of disseminating results in the sciences is, and has been for more than three centuries, publication in peer-reviewed scientific journals.11 Prior to et al., The Cost of Knowledge (2012), available at http://gowers.files. wordpress.com/2012/02/elsevierstatementfinal.pdf (statement of thirty-four prominent mathematicians protesting the practices of Elsevier). 9. See NAT’L ACAD. OF SCIS., ENSURING THE INTEGRITY, ACCESSIBILITY, AND STEWARDSHIP