What happens when you take something of value and give it away? | TheHill

"What are the consequences when you take something of value and give it away for free? Does it hurt the quality and reliability of the product? Can the product be produced at all? We are about to find out, and in an area that is critically important to U.S. competitiveness and innovation: science. Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released a plan to require free public access to science journal articles on a broad scale within 12 months of publication.  The DOE plan resulted from a February, 2013 directive on open access to the results of federally funded research from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) ... As the head of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents, I have been concerned about the impact of such calls for public access for some time. While popular and politically expedient, it is overly simplistic to demand that government-financed research be made available at no charge within a blanket, arbitrary timeframe.  A significant fraction of the scientific literature is published by nonprofit science, mathematics, and science and mathematics education societies, including those of my members.  Publications often represent an important core activity of those societies.  Public access policies therefore will significantly impact scientific societies, and could seriously damage both science and science education.   To mount a journal is not free.  Publication costs are significant, including hardware, software, management of the peer review process, editorial work and oversight,  database maintenance, printing, archiving, distribution, and storage.   Those are vital investments, so the real question is who will pay for them in the future: the authors (through their institution or via the very grants they receive), the users (such as libraries, companies, and individuals), or a third party (namely the government – i.e. taxpayers – or donors) ..."