On January 18, 2012, the Internet went dark. Hundreds of websites went black in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). The bills would have created a “blacklist” of censored websites based on… Read More ›
Tag Archive for ‘Open Access’
Open Access Rewards Passionate Curiosity: 2016 in Review
In February 2016, a team of scientists published one of the most important pieces of scientific research so far this century. For the first time, researchers had directly observed gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of spacetime whose discovery Albert… Read More ›
Deep Dive: Open Access and Transforming the Future of Research
EFF works to inform the world about breaking issues in the world of technology policy and civil liberties. And one of our best ways of communicating with our friends and members is through our nearly-weekly newsletter, EFFector. Last week, we… Read More ›
Patent Trolls Undermine Open Access
This Open Access Week, the global open access community has a lot to celebrate. Hundreds of universities around the world have adopted open access policies asking faculty to publish their research in open access journals or archive them in open… Read More ›
Over Two Years Later, Diego Gomez’s Ongoing Case Shows the Need for Global Reforms
When Diego Gomez, a biology master’s student at the University of Quindio in Colombia, shared a colleague’s thesis with other scientists over the Internet, he was doing what any other science grad student would do: sharing research he found useful… Read More ›
What Do Trade Agreements Do for Open Access—And What Don't They Do?
“If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” seems to have become the tech industry’s attitude towards the current crop of trade agreements, such as the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Their reasoning is just as… Read More ›
It’s Not Too Late. Let’s Pass an Open Access Law This Year.
Publicly Funded Research Should Be Open to the Public When the public pays for research, the public should have free access to that research. You shouldn’t have to buy expensive journal subscriptions or academic database access in order to read… Read More ›
Open Access Week 2016
Today is the first day of Open Access Week. We’re joining SPARC and dozens of other organizations all week to discuss the importance of open access. Open access is the practice of making research and other materials freely available online,… Read More ›
Stupid Patent of the Month: Elsevier Patents Online Peer Review
On August 30, 2016, the Patent Office issued U.S. Patent No. 9,430,468, titled; “Online peer review and method.” The owner of this patent is none other than Elsevier, the giant academic publisher. When it first applied for the patent, Elsevier… Read More ›
White House Source Code Policy Should Go Further
A new federal government policy will result in the government releasing more of the software that it creates under free and open source software licenses. That’s great news, but doesn’t go far enough in its goals or in enabling public… Read More ›