Attack on Public Research?


I was reading this article which has to do with an attempt of private organizations blocking the ability of the findings from public research to reach a public audience. The article itself which can be found here focuses on the National Institutes of Health, which is trying to put up a government website which "has encouraged researchers to place copies of their published works at PubMed Central, and has worked with publishers to facilitate this process while avoiding copyright issues." Congress has been exploring legislation to make posting of such research papers mandatory. Stating, "the results of publicly funded research should be accessible by the public that's paid for it."
However, some publishers such as the Association of American Publishers (AAP) are lobbying against moves by the government to make posting the research mandatory. It is their assertion that mandatory posting of the research papers is "an attack on peer review itself and that government-sponsored hosting is an invitation to censorship and manipulation." Thus, they have been lobbying to block passage of the legislation.

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I am of the opinion that blocking such a move is fundamentally wrong. Even from our current Uninformationalist system, research done with public money should be used for public benefit without incurring further costs. If a company wishes to produce a new technology that was discovered through publicly funded research; they should be able to charge the consumer for their production costs; but they SHOULD NOT be allowed to collect royalty charges for the technology itself.

That being said, I am still of the opinion that all research is fundamentally public property. I would prefer to see the day when there are no patents or copyrights. But that is going to require a fundamental change in how we view information. Until then, I will settle with protecting the freedom of Information that we have.