David Dickson, The threat to science as a 'public good', SciDev.Net, March 17, 2003. A call on the upcoming World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) to adddress "the range of growing threats to the flow of scientific information, both between individuals and between nations." Dickson is especially critical of "those who are imposing increased constraints on access to information, including scientific information, in order to benefit commercially from the growth of the information society." These constraints primarily take the form of profit-seeking through patents on research tools and profit-seeking through tolls on literature that ought to be free. "The growing privatisation of scientific knowledge is widening the knowledge gap between rich and poor countries at precisely a time when --in principle-- the potentially marginal costs of access to electronic information is offering a way to close it." Dickson is aware of the many initiatiives to address these problems. "But most of these initiatives are ad hoc arrangements....In issues from intellectual property rights to electronic publishing, an international consensus is now required that the needs of the disadvantaged cannot be met by palliatives alone." (Thanks to Leslie Chan.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/21/2003 05:21:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
