Interesting move, but ultimately it remains to be seen how easily accessible the articles will be and if there’s any link embedding shennanigans going on like other companies have done in the recent past. Also it’s interesting, as it was stated in the article, that the older papers fall under their scholar access accounts when they should be copyright free and should be in the public domain.
Seems like museums, libraries, etc that host public domain materials hold these hostage and will restrict access and reproduction of said materials.
They aren’t very accessible at all – you can’t download, print, or text-mine the papers – all you can do is view the pages as images on your screen – yes, I’m sure you could take screen captures or something to bypass the system but Nature is trying to get the kudos for being open without actually being open.
Here is an example link
I can copy and paste text from that example. That’s something.
I think it’s likely that someone will pull an Aaron Swartz and copy large parts of their “open” scientific journals and dump them on the internet. At least i’m not-so-secretly hoping for it.
I endorse that thought.
Guerrilla Open Access for the win!
I can at least understand why some people think privately-funded studies should be allowed to be kept private (unless they’re in humans; see alltrials.net), but intransigent possessiveness of public domain works (!!!) and charity-funded science is egregious and unconscionable. Hell, evil even seems appropriate.
What a world.
Dang! I thought this meant Mother Nature was opening the books.
I really hope that one day soon, folks with a clue will converge on aligning against corporate IP scumbaggery; surely the implications of the arseholes having their way will become obvious to enough folks in time.
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