[GOAL] Re: CHORUS is a Trojan Horse

[Stevan Harnad]

On Jul 11, 2014, at 6:34 AM, Stevan Harnad <amsciforum at gmail.com> wrote:

>> SH: CHORUS is a Trojan Horse, designed so that publishers retain control
>> over the timing, terms and territory of any transition to Open Access. 
>> Think about it. http://j.mp/TrojanHorseChorus

David Wojick replied (in the SSP Scholarly Kitchen):

> DW: Nonsense! It is the Feds that are asserting control via the US Public Access program. 
> CHORUS is an attempt to minimize the damage that more Federal repositories like 
> PMC will cause. CHORUS will improve scientific communication while reducing 
> Federal expenses. It is an elegant solution to a difficult problem.

SH: The Feds are (rightly) asserting control over the research output that the public funds 
by mandating public access to it. Doesn’t sound like nonsense to me. (Some) publishers 
are trying to slow the provision of public access to publicly funded research (by embargoing it) 
and are angling to remain the ones who provide the access, so that they retain control and 
proprietorship over both the research output and the provision of access to it. That doesn’t 
sound like nonsense to me either — just self-interest in a profound conflict of interest 
between those who fund, conduct and provide the research output (the Feds, the public, and 
researchers) on the one hand, and those who manage the peer review of that research output 
(publishers). The peers (researchers) review for free. It is not nonsense to attempt to hold onto 
a cushy deal by “minimizing the damage” for as long as possible to the inflated income streams 
to which they have long grown accustomed. The Feds, the public, and researchers can only hope 
that this damage-limitation attempt will fail. And it will -- though perhaps not until after yet 
another round of delay tactics, of which CHORUS and the lobbying for it are a prominent instance.

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