
Half of taxpayer funded research will soon be available to the public - RougeFemme
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/01/17/half-of-taxpayer-funded-research-will-soon-be-available-to-the-public/
======
sparkie
When is the taxpayer going to be given the right to use inventions funded with
their own money?

It's pretty terrible that some academic can take public money to fund his
research, then take out a patent on the result and prevent his financiers from
using an 'invention'.

Actually, the most stupid part about the whole thing it is that the
_government_ gets some rights to use these publicly-funded patented
inventions. (As if the government, not the taxpayer funded it)

~~~
tostitos1979
It is not as simple/obvious as you may think it is. It depends on what the
goals of the govt are. If the govt is trying to encourage progress on cancer
drugs, they can certainly give grants to stimulate that research direction. If
the govt said if you get even 1 cent of grant money from us, you can't patent
your drug. Well .. few researchers will take that money. The govt can of
course fund a new lab that does cancer research. It can choose to make all IP
that comes out of this lab public. I think in the former case, there is a
bigger multiplier effect/leverage from the same amount of money (without the
IP restriction).

You need to realize that IP is an artificial monopoly granted by the govt for
a purpose.

~~~
hdevalence
I don't think that the OP doesn't understand what "intellectual property" is,
they just disagree with the assessment that it's necessary (or maybe proper)
for the government to grant private monopolies on scientific knowledge.

You need to realize that people can know what IP is and still disagree with
you.

~~~
throwawaykf03
Maybe the OP understands what "IP" is, but it seems they do not understand the
economics of research or why IP is still applicable to publicly funded
research.

If one knows the concept of IP but not why it's needed in these situations,
one is still arguing from a position of incomplete understanding.

~~~
sparkie
I understand IP very well, and I disagree with the whole concept.

Here I'm just making a point at how stupid the system actually is. As I
stated, the government gets rights to use patents funded by taxpayer money,
but the taxpayer has no such rights. The government here is actually nothing
but a mediator of funds from taxpayer to researcher, yet it acts as if it paid
for the research out of it's own pocket.

------
tzs
Terrible headline, as almost all taxpayer funded research is already available
to the public.

This is about making it more conveniently available. Currently, you might have
to go through a paywall for online access, or visit a library for free access.
This should make much of it available online at no cost.

Actually, a lot more than most people realize is fairly easily available
online (with publisher permission) for cheap via DeepDyve [1], including from
publishers that we normally think of as being very expensive.

Here's a page at DeepDyve that lets you browse by subject, journal, or
publisher [2], which should give a good idea of what they have available.

Not as nice as open access, of course, but still pretty useful.

[1] [http://www.deepdyve.com](http://www.deepdyve.com)

[2] [http://www.deepdyve.com/browse/](http://www.deepdyve.com/browse/)

------
MWil
I hope PACER follows suit soon. We are paying under the guise of the
government having the burden of being the sole provider when it could very
easily be distributively hosted with a verification system built-in. Doesn't
eliminate all costs but that's never been the point. The point is to pay for
costs that make sense.

------
kartikkumar
Yes! Very good news, and it's only the start. We need to keep pushing for more
top-quality open access journals, open access to data sets, and open access to
scientific software.

I try my best to stick to this myself, and I've open-sourced all my PhD
research code for the exact reason that I know that it's non-negotiable, given
that public funding has enabled me to pursue something I love and further
science as a result.

I'm all for this, and I've even brainstormed ways with a few others in my
field of actually trying to put together a community-based, peer-review system
that makes use of arxiv.org.

This space NEEDS innovation!

------
obblekk
What value do publishers provide? Why don't new companies disrupt the space
seeing that physical mediums are long gone?

~~~
Fomite
First, as I noted in a lower comment, the physical mediums aren't long gone.

Second, Publishers provide some value - they aggregate editors and peer
reviewers, they provide copy editing and layout services, and yes, they
produce actual physical copies of the journals.

These could be provided by other means, but most of those involve more work
for the researcher. And after reading a vast swath of LaTeX layout papers, I
value their layout services if nothing else.

Third, you seem to be assuming new companies aren't "disrupting the space".
PLoS has been doing so for years, and PeerJ and eLife are picking up steam.

~~~
obblekk
Well by physical mediums I meant distribution. If you print out PDFs, then
that's exactly my point- it seems less necessary to deliver a bound magazine
every month.

But I understand your other two points.

~~~
Fomite
I confess for the three journals I read most frequently, I also get paper
copies delivered, because I find I browse and have ideas cross pollinate
better that way.

------
kriro
Unfortunately the glass is still half empty.

But good starts are good.

------
geoka9
Why only half?

~~~
logn
Because the other half are done by research orgs with budgets less than $100MM
and the law doesn't apply to them.

~~~
greenyoda
The article says:

" _Deep inside the $1.1 trillion Consolidated Appropriations Act for 2014 is a
provision that requires federal agencies under the Labor, Health and Human
Services, and Education portion of the bill with research budgets of $100
million or more..._ "

Restricting the law to only those three government departments excludes a lot
of agencies with huge research budgets: the National Science Foundation (with
a 7 billion dollar annual budget[1]), the Department of Energy, the Department
of Defense, NASA, the Department of Transportation, the Department of
Agriculture, etc.

In fact, the research published by the Department of Labor and the Department
of Education probably has little value to the private sector compared to the
research done by the departments that I listed.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Foundation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Foundation)

~~~
dnautics
to be fair, NIH is huge.

------
emiliobumachar
Does this law allow the government to break copyright owned by the paywalled
distributors? Because many of them simply require submitters to transfer all
copyrights of the articles to them.

~~~
Fomite
The way this is currently handled is that when an author identifies that their
article is funded by the NIH, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute or some
others, it is automatically flagged to become public access in a year. Several
of my own articles that were behind paywalls are now open access under said
system.

Free access and copyright transfer aren't necessarily in opposition.

------
mindcrime
_Human Knowledge Belongs To The World_

~~~
melling
Yeah, but someone has to pay for it and someone has to do all of the work.

~~~
sliverstorm
_pish posh, why should we care about implementation details?_

~~~
melling
I guess you'll just have to wait until someone else works out the details.
Soon you will discover that not much is going to get done sitting on your
hands waiting for everyone else to do the work.

~~~
sliverstorm
_ok, so once they spend the money and do the work though, we get to take it
from them right?_

------
tyang
What is the other half? Defense and intelligence related research?

