Hi,

“Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the sciences? You'll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.”1

Demand Progress’ co-founder Aaron Swartz published the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto in 2008 that famously began: “Information is power.” Swartz described how "the world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of private corporations.” 

14 years later, the fight for free and open access to information continues. 

Last week, the Biden Administration took a big step towards realizing the goals of the Open Access Movement when it moved to make all federally funded research publicly available as soon as it’s published.2 Now, Congress should pass a law ensuring the provision goes into effect ASAP!

Sign the petition: Congress must make sure all federally funded research publications are made available online to all without delay!

Public access to publicly-funded research should’ve been a no-brainer. But it wasn’t, because the science publishing industry and private corporations profit from building paywalls around research findings, keeping it from the public for as long as possible and forcing scientists to pay onerous rent for access. 

Since 2013, federal agencies have been required to make federally funded research public after it’s been published for one year. That’s one year of corporate welfare charged at the public’s expense. The new White House memo represents a major opportunity to end the wait for universal access to research that could enable life-saving breakthroughs in medicine and climate research, and boost the economy.3

In Aaron Swartz’s words: 

“Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for themselves."

That needs to change. The first step is full implementation of the White House directive.

Sign the petition: Congress must push federal agencies to require the findings from federally funded research be available online to all without delay!

Thanks for taking action,

Izzi and the team at Demand Progress

Sources: 

  1. Internet Archive, “Guerilla Open Access Manifesto,” July 2008.
  2. White House, “Memorandum on Ensuring Free, Immediate, and Equitable Access to Federally Funded Research.” August 25, 2022. 
  3. Science.org, “White House requires immediate public access to all U.S.-funded research papers by 2025,” August 26, 2022.

 

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