Please see DJB’s article on this topic.
Quite often while searching on Google I find something that looks interesting and I am led to the IEEE where I am presented with a short synopsis and a link to a pdf. To get access to the pdf I have to join IEEE or pay a fee.
There are numerous organizations that do this and they’re making good money at it. What I’m worried about is that for the less fortunate that don’t have group access or who can’t afford membership then we will never be able to access this knowledge. If we want to increase our body of knowledge globally then closing access to papers stands in the way of this.
The IEEE are asking people to sign away their copyright. The only reason for doing this is so they can profiteer from it by denying access to the papers. Because they’re big and have thousands of papers means they can get away with it.
I took a look at their home page and their logo has the following sound bite.
The world’s leading professional association
for the advancement of technology
I think this needs to be changed to
The world’s leading professional association
for the advancement of technology among the wealthy
To be published somewhere like the IEEE can impact your career. Signing away copyright to the IEEE to get a paper published may mean a budding scientist gets noticed and this is the problem. Until either the IEEE carries less weight or there is another way for people to get their work noticed then people will continue to sign their copyright over to the IEEE. Of course the IEEE could also decided to accept public domain papers and publish them for free.
I believe in free access to knowledge for everyone and this is why I am opposed to these kind of tactics. Google has the right idea! (the first line)
Google’s mission is to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
I just wish they’d hurry up 😉