Concept
Open access
Overview
Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre open access, barriers to copying or reuse are also reduced or removed by applying an open license for copyright, which regulates post-publication uses of the work.
The main focus of the open access movement has been on peer reviewed research literature, and more specifically on academic journals. This is because:
such publications have been a subject of serials crisis, unlike newspapers, magazines and fiction writing. The main difference between these two groups is in demand elasticity: whereas an English literature curriculum can substitute Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone with a public domain alternative, such as A Voyage to Lilliput, an emergency room physician treating a patient for a life-threatening urushiol poisoning cannot substitute the most recent, but paywalled review article on this topic with a 90-year-old copyright-expired article that was published before the invention of prednisone in 1954.
the authors of research papers are not paid in any way, so they do not suffer any monetary losses, when they switch from behind paywall to open access publishing, especially, if they use diamond open access media.
the cost of electronic publishing, which has been the main form of distribution of journal articles since c. 2000, is incommensurably smaller than the cost of on-paper publishing and distribution, which is still preferred by many readers of fiction.
Whereas non-open access journals cover publishing costs through access tolls such as subscriptions, site licenses or pay-per-view charges, open-access journals are characterised by funding models which do not require the reader to pay to read the journal's contents, relying instead on author fees or on public funding, subsidies and sponsorships. Open access can be applied to all forms of published research output, including peer-reviewed and non peer-reviewed academic journal articles, conference papers, theses, book chapters, monographs, research reports and images.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
* Nearly all photographs are deemed to be copyrightable, but no one worries about them much, because everyone is free to take the same image. Thus, a photographic copyright represents what is called a "thin" copyright. The photograph itself must be duplicated, in order for copyright to be violated. * The Copyright Office takes the position that X-rays are not copyrightable because they are mechanical. It can be…
Library of Congress, Workshop on Electronic Texts
States what Open access is.
(1) the reproduction or distribution is made without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage; (2) the collections of the library or archives are (i) open to the public, or (ii) available not only to researchers affiliated with the library or archives or with the institution of which it is a part, but also to other persons doing research in a specialized field; and (3) the reproduction or distribution…
United States, Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, Circular 92
Close in meaning to Open access; the term itself is not named.
Scarcely anyone would consent to this: because he would thereby expose himself to every sort of trouble about the inquiry and the defense. The work would therefore remain exclusively in the editor's hands.]
Immanuel Kant, Of the Injustice of Counterfeiting Books
Close in meaning to Open access; the term itself is not named.
Philosophers who discussed Open access
Related ideas
- Internet
- Latin America
- Medical doctor
- Peer review
- Social science
- Sustainable development
- Academic publishing
- Modern Language Association
- License
- Elsevier
- Nature (journal)
- American Library Association
- Copyright
- Humanities
- Monograph
- Developing country
- Stevan Harnad
- Academic institution
- Scholarly peer review
- Subscription business model
Place in the tradition
Part of Academic publishing.