Why Open Access is Good News for Neo-Nazis

"Much of the debate on Open Access has concentrated on the shift from a subscription model that opens access for authors, while restricting access for readers, to a publication charge model that restricts access for authors, while opening access for readers. The proposed requirement to publish under a Creative Commons CC-BY licence may, though, be even more pernicious for social science authors.  Unfortunately, understanding why takes us to parts of intellectual property law that many of us do not usually need to bother with. I may be old-fashioned but I remember when university librarians were people of high integrity who worried about the protection of copyright in books and journals.  We baby-boomers have had years of completing copyright forms before copying anything, promising only to xerox a limited part of any work and to use it solely for education or research.  The information from these forms, and their electronic successors, determined payments to a licensing agency working for authors, who then received a royalty, reflecting the value of the intellectual property they had created.  For most, this was rarely more than a few tens of pounds per year but it acknowledged their ownership of the intellectual property they had created. I also used to think that UK government departments were committed to the rule of law so that people could not be deprived of property rights without payment of fair compensation.  Indeed, I have regularly observed their continuing commitment to the protection from internet piracy of intellectual property in film, music, literature and other works. The CC-BY licence strips all this away.  One class of content creators, who happen to work in universities, will arbitrarily lose its historic rights to own and control the intellectual property that it has created.  Will there be any compensation for their economic losses?  Do I need to spell out the answer?..."