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CULTURE
The scandal of scholarship
Expect some righteous anger as a new film exposes an unexpected con, says Graham Lawton
Paywall: The business of scholarship,
directed by Jason Schmitt, can be
viewed at paywallthemovie.com
TWO minutes into this riveting
documentary, there’s a moment
of cinematic genius. Just as the
story is getting into its stride,
THUD – down comes a paywall
and a voice says: “We are sorry,
you do not have the credentials to
access this documentary. Please
see payment options below.”
You’re going to have to shell
out $39.95 to keep watching. Of
course, you don’t. The paywall
is fake and, after a few agonising
seconds, the film rolls on. But
its impact is real, a mixture of
“WTF?” and “How dare they!”
This is precisely the reaction
film-maker Jason Schmitt is
aiming for, and what academics
feel when butting up against
paywalls that demand money in
exchange for allowing them to
read the latest research in their
field. This research is likely to
have been paid for by all of us,
but has ended up out of reach
behind a barrier.
The story of how this happened
is the stuff of Paywall, a movie
whose unpromising material is
unexpectedly spun into gold as
we are carried on a rising tide
of astonishment and righteous
anger. By the end, you will be
convinced scholarly publishing
is one of the greatest cons ever.
It is worth billions to
publishers, who charge people to
read their journals through fees or
subscriptions. But neither comes
cheap. Take Schmitt’s example,
PAYWALLTHEMOVIE.COM A sub costs around $10,700 a year.
Biomaterials, an Elsevier journal.
Individual articles on Elsevier’s
Science Direct portal generally
cost $39.95. These prices drive
46 | NewScientist | 27 October 2018 private profit
margins of some 37 per cent – nice have risen faster than inflation for research bodies, which together
for shareholders and the industry. years. Publishers sell discounted hand out €18 billion a year,
These fat margins are built on “bundles” of subs to libraries, but unveiled a radical plan: from
publicly funded research and free remove content without notice. 2020, research they fund must
scientific labour. The research, They also ask institutions to sign be published in an open access
paper writing, peer review and non-disclosure agreements about journal, making it instantly
journal editing are done by prices, ostensibly in return for a available to everyone for free.
scientists funded by taxpayers. discount, so nobody knows what Will this finally change the game?
Yet the resulting research papers anyone else pays and collective The evolving story is told
somehow end up the intellectual mainly through talking heads,
property of the publisher. “ Scientists in poor (and yet, amazingly, the passion and
To add insult to injury, subs and even rich) countries can’t eloquence of the interviewees
tolls are largely paid by university get at research they need, plus punchy editing keeps it
libraries, funded by… taxpayers. while publishers get rich” exciting. And the film ends with
It’s not as if there’s competition, a real bang as we meet Alexandra
either. Scientists need access to all bargaining is impossible. Many Elbakyan, the “pirate queen” of
journals, making them a licence scientists in poor countries (but scientific publishing, who runs
to print money for the publishers. sometimes also in rich ones) can’t Sci-Hub. This website makes
And to advance their careers, they get access to research they need, around 70 million paywalled
must publish in high-impact while the publishers just get rich. research papers freely and easily
journals, mostly run on the There is another model, open available. Elbakyan has been
toll-access model. access, but 20 years of insurgency sued by Elsevier and others, and
There’s worse. For no reason have failed to smash the system. is a fugitive from justice so her
other than price gouging, costs Last month, however, 13 European interview was a real coup. When
Schmitt asks her opinion of
Elsevier (Sci-Hub’s most pirated
publisher), she delivers the film’s
coup de grâce with her arch reply:
“I like their slogan ‘making
uncommon knowledge common’
very much, but as far as I can tell,
Elsevier has not mastered this job
well. Sci-Hub is helping them to
fulfil their mission.”
If I have any criticism of the
movie, it is that it fails to capture
the publishers’ story – if only to
let them hang themselves. It also
focuses too much on Elsevier,
which, says Schmitt, declined
to take part. This focus unfairly
demonises one company and
lets others off the hook. For
balance, you should know that
Paywall shows the giant does participate in
funded publishers accept the problem
how publicly
open-access publishing, and that
and the need for change – in part
research is
to dodge the bullets fired by
turned into
exposés such as this. ■