More than 125 journal publishers and scientific and medical societies have signed a letter to Donald Trump asking him to reverse a policy they believe is being prepared that would require any journal publishing research that received US federal funding to make the article freely available without a subscription, immediately on publication.
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Currently, under the terms of a 2013 agreement, journal publishers may charge readers for federally funded research articles for 12 months from publication, after which the paywall must come down.
The revenue from those 12 months is essential to pay the costs of publication, the letter’s signatories argue. But, they write, “we have learned that the Administration may be preparing to step into the private marketplace and force the immediate free distribution of journal articles.”
“Going below the current 12 month 'embargo' would make it very difficult for most American publishers to invest in publishing these articles,” the letter warns, suggesting that the government would then feel obliged to take on the task of publication.
“This cost shift would place billions of dollars of new and additional burden on taxpayers” and could force some scientific societies to close their doors, the letter argues.
The letter also appeals to the president’s economic nationalist instincts. Requiring immediate open access, it argues, would “effectively nationalise the valuable American intellectual property that we produce and force us to give it away to the rest of the world for free.”
