Publishing a paper in a respected
journal marks the culmination of successful scientific research,
and in this age of genome-scale analyses and Internet-fuelled
information overload, scientists still go about this process in
much the same way as in decades past. The manuscript is submitted
to a journal for peer review—the optimistic researcher will
begin with prestigious journals, working down if the paper is
declined—and, once accepted, the article is revised and
published, accessible to subscribers of a particular journal.
This traditional system, outwardly benign, has become ill-suited
to its purpose of the disseminating scientific information.

As academic scientists, we take pride in the sovereignty of our
research, and our ability freely to publish and communicate our
results. Yet we submit to a cartel that privatizes our findings
and compels us to buy back access to these results. We accept
that access to our papers will be available only to researchers
whose institutions are willing or able to pay exorbitant
licensing fees. The wild increase of these fees far outstrips the
consumer price index, barring countless medical
professionals access to the literature and causing
many libraries to reduce acquisitions in fields other
than science.

Research institutions pay massive subscription fees to ensure
continued access to scientific literature, a situation
worsened by a captive market and landscape effectively devoid of
traditional price competition: if you desperately need an article
from Journal X, a subscription to Journal Y is of no
use. Publishers are free to charge whatever they like