Peace, Love, and PLoS
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The Press Conference
On June 26 I had the pleasure of attending a press conference
at the National Press Club. Public Library of Science (PLoS) co-founder Michael
Eisen held the press conference to announce that Rep. Martin Sabo (D-MN) was
ready to introduce the “Public Access to Science Act.” This legislation would
“exclude from copyright protection works resulting from scientific research
substantially funded by the Federal Government.” It sounds simple enough, but
believe me, it isn’t.
As PLoS’s clever use of Robert Indiana’s 1973 Love Stamp for
their own logo in some of their promotional material implies, they are
continuing to cultivate their carefully crafted image of a grass roots movement.
I went to the PLoS press conference because I wanted to learn first-hand about
the latest efforts by Eisen et al to make science truly free.
PLoS cofounder Eisen stood before us, armed with a publicist
and an advertising agency, not to mention a $9 million grant from the Gordon and
Betty Moore Foundation. He started with the same refrain we have heard for four
years: that we must make science free, because the present system (1) denies the
public access to scientific information, and (2) inhibits the exchange of
science to scientists. The examples given for why science ought to be freely
available on the web were the non-scientist breast cancer sufferer searching for
information about her disease and treatment options and the incredibly fast
dissemination of information about the SARS epidemic.
The press conference also included Bill Hillsman of Northwood
Creative Advertising unveiling a 30-second TV commercial intended to make the
public familiar with the PLoS name and sympathetic to the idea that science
should be free. This spot features a not-so-ordinary-looking man who walks out
his front door, briefcase in hand, and rather than getting into a car or walking
to the bus stop, just lifts off into the sky without any visible source of
propulsion. The voiceover says, “In the year 2003, the Public Library of Science
made it possible for people all over the world to have access to the latest
scientific discoveries. Shortly thereafter, things began to change.”
My favorite thing about this commercial is that the first
thing you see is a newspaper landing on the man’s doorstep. Taking the PLoS
backers’ arguments at face value, if even the people in the poorest part of
Africa are so wired that they need free online access to the scientific
literature, why is this man receiving a newspaper? Furthermore, why does this
“ordinary” citizen think it’s okay to pay for a newspaper but not a
peer-reviewed scientific article about his grandmother’s diabetes?
The last speaker at the press conference was Michael
Erlandson, who is the chief of staff for Congressman Sabo. Erlandson described
the bill Sabo was about to introduce that would make it impossible to copyright
any articles based upon scientific research “substantially funded” by federal
agencies. In other words, such research would all go immediately into the public
domain, meaning that no one, not the publisher, not the authors nor researchers,
would hold the rights to that work. It could be used (or changed, amended, sold,
or simply lifted without attribution) by authors—scrupulous or otherwise.
Indeed, it could be taken and resold by other publishers, without the permission
or knowledge of the author.
The argument underlying this bold proposal is that, as US
taxpayers, we have already paid for the science that is federally funded (such
as research supported by grants from the NIH). Therefore, why should any of us,
scientist and patient alike, have to pay again to read the results of that
research? That sounds good, but some of my tax dollars also go to wheat and
other farm subsidies, and I don’t see anyone handing me free loaves of Wonder
Bread.
The Public
Results of scientific research have never been more
accessible to the layperson than they are right now. Online journals are
searchable on the Internet, and the full text of APS journals is searchable
through Google. All APS content is already free online after 12 months.
Moreover, those researching medical conditions can still obtain abstracts from
more recent APS journal articles, show them to their doctors, and then write to
the APS for more information. In such cases, I direct the person to the journal
editor. Those who wish can also buy a single article for $8. In our society,
consumers are used to paying for things they want or need: they buy their bread,
their gourmet coffee, and their newspapers. When they support public television
or radio, they even pay for the federally subsidized news they could be getting
for free. The point is that people can get to the information they want, very
often for free. But even the very newest research is available for a reasonable
price, as would be any other magazine, newspaper, or book they might want to
read.
The Scientists
The other argument is that subscription-based journals
inhibit exchange of science to scientists. However, the reality is that
scientific journal articles have never been more accessible. Online journals
allow unprecedented access to abstracts and full text articles. Libraries,
aggregators, and “portals” such as the HighWire Library of the Sciences and
Medicine—of which the APS journals are a part—allow access so seamless that
researchers often can’t tell who paid for the content (5). This has been so
successful that many of them are convinced that the content is free. I am proud
to work for a society that is as generous, flexible, and innovative about
disseminating science as APS has been throughout its history. APS has been one
of the first to (1) put journals online; (2) make access to online articles free
12 months after publication; (3) move to web-based peer review; (4) publish
articles online ahead of print; (5) send free print journals to undeveloped
countries and join online consortia supporting developing countries; and (6)
give authors a choice of paying a fee to allow their article to be published
with open access (1). We are still holding out against complicated licensing
agreements to libraries, or multi-site licenses that would help us recover the
revenue lost when entire universities gain access to content as a result of one
online subscription. The APS has long understood what the PLoS backers are
pointing out, namely, that institutions are paying for science coming and going.
That is why our particular subscription-based model distributes costs among
authors (through author fees), readers (through individual subscriptions or
pay-per-view charges), and institutions (through library subscriptions).
It is precisely because of our experience with author fees
and our authors’ dislike for them, that we are not sure whether the open access
models will work. In fact, when PLoS first announced its new journals and new
model, it was criticized by some authors and open access proponents who objected
to the steep $1,500 fee for publishing an article. To borrow some 1960s idioms,
the “free-love freaks” found themselves in the position of the “pigs.” Douglas
Carnall, a general practitioner who runs a web site to publish his own work,
wrote in the online Rapid Responses to an article on the PLoS model in the BMJ,
“Wow! £936 to have your article published! That’s expensive…That Harold Varmus
must be on a good salary! Or perhaps it is being priced to fail?” (2) Gunther
Eysenbach, Editor and Publisher of the Journal of Medical Internet Research,
wrote, “I wonder why—if you have $9 million—you still need to charge the authors
three times more than we charge for a JMIR article, although we do not have any
funding for the journal (except $500 mini-grants for fee waivers for needy
authors from the Soros Foundation).” (4)
APS is offering an open-access option for authors publishing
in Physiological Genomics. I will be interested to see how authors will respond
to the choice to pay a fee to allow open access to their articles. No doubt we
will all learn something. I certainly wish the PLoS Publishers the best of luck
with their two new journals, both of which will be published with an author-fee
based, open access model (without the choice).
The PLoS example of information sharing during the SARS
epidemic shows that traditional publishing—now faster and more accessible than
ever—does not hinder access to important information during a crisis. Through a
combination of published articles in journals like the New England Journal of
Medicine, The Lancet, and Science, along with unpublished data and news on the
WHO and CDC web sites, researchers and doctors were able to share as quickly as
possible information on this fast-moving and deadly disease.
For some PLoS backers, however, there is another access
issue, namely, whether authors can use others’ published data. But is there
really a problem as things now stand? It is the very nature of the activity of
science that researchers will take others’ works and replicate them (or try to),
expand on them, try them another way. Is there anything about the way we publish
now that hinders this activity? Even if an author wants to borrow something
published, he or she need only ask permission to use a table or figure, and the
request will be granted. APS never has charged for or denied this kind of
permission request. We also support and, in fact, instruct our authors to
deposit genomic and other data into the DDBJ, EMBL, and GenBank, and most
recently, the GEO data bank for micro array data. When I reminded Eisen
privately that all journals allow data to be used with correct attribution and
even parts of articles such as figures and tables as long as permission is
requested, he claimed to be too busy to ask for permission. At least now, he
only has to ask permission from publishers. As Michael Held, Executive Director
of The Rockefeller University Press, has previously pointed out, if authors were
to retain copyright—a less radical approach used by some journals, including the
new PLoS journals—“granting copyright back to authors…could prevent any form of
free access because permission to post material would have to be obtained from
each individual author”—a truly onerous task (7). While putting a percentage of
science in the public domain would eliminate that burden regarding at least
those federally funded articles, one must think through the consequences before
assuming that this is what all scientists really want. At what price freedom?
Copyright
The proposed legislation that would exclude all federally
funded research from copyright protection speaks to the desire of some
scientists to use data freely—to reuse and even redistribute data without
getting permission. But why was copyright developed in the first place? In its
first instance, in 16th century England, it was developed to protect the rights
of printers, but it very quickly evolved to protect the rights of authors, and
was written into the US Constitution as such. In fact, it is tied to the patent
clause, and was intended to “promote the progress of science and useful arts,”
by allowing authors potential commercial benefit from their work.
Note that PLoS is not suggesting that patent law be weakened
in this proposed bill. Apparently they believe that it’s okay for scientists to
benefit financially from work that is patentable, but not okay for publishers to
be compensated for the work they perform in order to disseminate research on the
scientists’ behalf. Nevertheless, even the PLoS folks have stepped away from the
original notion that the arrival of the web makes it unnecessary for journals to
exist because scientists can post their work and make it freely available to all
or that all research should be put into a national data base. Even they have had
to admit that there is some value in the recognition that publications offer
prestige, a niche, a community that renders research more accessible and more
meaningful by putting it in context. As a result, PLoS backers are starting two
journals of their own.
The Evolution of PLoS
At the press conference, Eisen reviewed the history of the
PLoS movement and made some interesting statements. He said that PLoS supporters
first tried to change publishing from within, by asking publishers to view the
cost of publishing as a cost of research. However, the publishers rejected the
notion. Next, PLoS backers sought to generate leverage by asking scientists to
sign a letter pledging to boycott journals that do not permit open access. Over
30,000 scientists signed the PLoS boycott letter, but Eisen asserted that the
effort failed because publishers still wouldn’t change their ways. Finally, PLoS
received the $9 million grant, making it possible to start two journals using
their open access model.
This benign, inclusive description of how their approach to a new-and-improved
publishing model evolved is not quite the way I remember the events of the last
four years. First, I remember a proposal from then NIH Director Harold Varmus
that all research should reside in one database at the National Library of
Medicine (NLM) (“E-Biomed”) and be freely accessible to all. As the dialogue
that it invited got under way and the proposal evolved into a repository of
journal articles as well as its own peer-review system, I remember being told
that if publishers couldn’t afford to give vetted, copy edited, typeset files to
the NLM, with no compensation, than we simply didn’t know how to produce our
journals efficiently. If this meant that an important source of income to
scientific societies would be lost, societies would simply have to find other
sources of income. Publishers found themselves defending their expenses when no
real analysis of cost had been done by the E-Biomed proponents (6).
When the PLoS boycott deadline came and went, PLoS claimed that the boycott
failed because the publishers wouldn’t change. But could it be that it failed
because so many of the scientists who signed it didn’t follow through on what
they said they would do? PLoS cofounder Pat Brown’s article in Cell, published
in August 2001, is but one good example (8). When I queried some of the
signatories about this discrepancy between pledge and action, they said
essentially that they didn’t really mean it, but that they just wanted to make a
point. PLoS’s spin on these events is comparable to saying that a labor strike
in which most of the union members crossed the picket line failed because the
bosses did not meet the workers’ demands.
Now PLoS has decided to start two journals. Having started
some myself, I won’t underestimate the importance of the passion their editors
have for the project. That alone will give them a great start. Of course the $9
million grant doesn’t hurt, either.
The Publishing Model
The financial aspect of the open access publishing model, in
which the author pays a fee to be published, and the “user” (a.k.a. reader or
erstwhile subscriber) pays nothing, may end up being one that works, if not in
this precise form then in some variation that we have not yet considered. APS
publications, which already use a publishing model that relies on diverse
revenue sources, are not particularly threatened by this prospect. We never
relied solely on the wealth of libraries to support us, nor have we relied
heavily on advertising. It remains to be seen, however, how scientists will
react to an open-access model that asks them to foot the whole bill. More
important, perhaps, is the question of how their funding agencies will react. I
have heard it said that scientists will have to pressure funding agencies to
support publication costs, but the competition in some fields is so intense that
many scientists are focused solely on getting a score high enough to be funded.
Even the Guide to Business Planning for Launching a New Open Access Journal
published by the Open Society Institute states that “researchers engaged in
especially large-scale or long-term projects might consider attempting to …
negotiate a government grant that extends … to also encompass dissemination.”
(3) How many scientists are in this position? There is a troubling elitism
running through this freedom movement.
Other elements of the open-access model still seem a little
fuzzy, too. What about authors who are not federally funded? Or not funded at
all? How about international authors? Fifty percent of APS journal submissions
and 39% of APS journal articles published are from authors outside the US. If
those authors cannot afford to pay the fee, should US taxpayers be asked to
subsidize what the APS will have to charge funded authors to cover the
publication of research done outside the US?
Michael Eisen said to me after that press conference, “I bet
we’re a lot closer on this issue than you’re willing to admit.” Knowing all that
APS has done and continues to do to disseminate science as broadly as possible,
my response is, “Maybe.” Maybe publishing will evolve to something that everyone
(authors, researchers, libraries, the public) can be even happier with than they
are now. I’m not against improvement—my staff and I devote considerable time and
attention trying to improve our publications program. Why, then, has PLoS chosen
to create expensive TV commercials to be aired during The Letterman Show and the
Simpsons? Why the legislation? PLoS has an untested model. It might work, but at
the same time it has the potential to do significant harm to other models that
have proven their value. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of peace and love in
this full-bore, expensive and high-powered assault on publishers in the guise of
a grass-roots movement. Never mind that the PLoS backers say they’re not
attacking other journal publishers; actions speak louder than words. In the
meantime, I’m going to keep doing my job, working on these wonderful APS
journals. Peace, man.
Margaret Reich
APS Director of Publications
Acknowledgment
I would like to thank Alice Ra’anan for her advice and help with this article.
References
1. APS unveils an open access choice for authors of Physiological Genomics.
The Physiologist, 46: 105, 2003.
2. Carnall, D. Publishing’s getting expensive! Published Jan 3, 2003, online as
a Rapid Response to L Eaton. “Free medical publishing venture gets under way.”
BMJ 326: 11b, 2003.
3. Crow, R., and Goldstein, H. Guide to Business Planning for Launching a New
Open Access Journal, Ed 1.0, pub January 2003 by the Open Society Institute, p.
31.
4. Eysenbach, G. “Open access monopoly may threaten smaller journals.” Published
Jan 8, 2003, online as a Rapid Response to L Eaton. “Free medical publishing
venture gets under way.” BMJ 326:11b, 2003.
5. Frank, M. Creating a better mousetrap! A matter of opinion. The
Physiologist; 45: 3, 2002.
6. Frank, M. No free lunch. The Physiologist 44, 2001.
7. Held, MJ. “Proposed legislation supports an untested publishing model.” J
Cell Biol. 162: DOI: 10.1083/jcb.200307018, 2003.
8. Liu, R., Liu, H., Chen, X, Kirby, M., Brown, P., Zhao, K. Regulation of CSF1
promoter by the SWI/SNF-like BAF Complex. Cell; 106: 309-318, 2001.
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