Lindsay McKenzie, Inside Higher Ed; Open Access at the Movies
"[Jason] Schmitt's film raises some important questions -- how is it possible
that big for-profit publishers, such as Elsevier, have fatter profit
margins than some of the biggest corporations in the world? Why can't
everyone read all publicly funded research for free?
Discussion of these questions in the film is undoubtedly one-sided.
Of around 70 people featured in the film, just a handful work for
for-profit publishers like Springer-Nature or the American Association
for the Advancement of Science -- and they don't get much screen time.
There is also no representative from Elsevier, despite the publisher
being the focus of much criticism in the film. This was not for lack of
trying, said Schmitt. “I offered Elsevier a five-minute section of the
film that they could have full creative control over,” he said. “They
turned me down.”
Schmitt said he made Paywall not for academics and scholars
but for the general public. He wants people to understand how scholarly
publishing works, and why they should care that they can’t access
research paid for with their tax dollars."
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