Peter Suber posts the AAP/PSP’s response to the Nature exposé. As a free service, I’ll happily translate it for you:
Not-for-profit and commercial publishers, as a group, have a responsibility to make the case on important issues regarding science and research.
Every one of our members just better fall in line to defend us over this, you hear? If not, we’re one hundred percent screwed.
It’s unfortunate that reporters picked up on some early proposals that were not adopted and, regrettably, the Nature article has misrepresented what’s really going on.
We really, really regret having been caught red-handed. We can’t possibly explain, because there isn’t actually an honest explanation that doesn’t make us look worse, and we can’t be dishonest because we haven’t yet found the leak we’ve obviously got, and so we’ll just get caught again.
We and many others have legitimate concerns that government mandated open access could have unintended consequences for the scientific community – and anyone who relies on sound science.
We’re legitimately concerned that our profit margins will evaporate.
Scientists rely on a publishing system that delivers quality, technology, global dissemination and preservation of the record of science. We believe that government mandated open access could put essential aspects of the system at risk and could undermine the quality, sustainability or independence of science.
Remember those profit margins? They’re toast. Toast, I tell you!
And hey, we may be stumblebum slimepuppies, but we’ve been stumblebum slimepuppies for decades! Nay, centuries! You can’t want to get rid of us now! After all, nobody protected the pennyfarthing bicycle, and just look what happened! You don’t want that on your conscience, do you?
That’s why the AAP/PSP thinks it’s important that all sides of the debate are heard.
That’s why we’re spending enough money on Capitol Hill lobbyists and sleazy PR flacks to pay for the launch of several hundred open-access journals. That’s why we’ll tell every single whopper about open access we can think of, and pay buckus maximus to the biggest scuzzball we can find to come up with more whoppers for us when we run out.
Gotta protect those profit margins. At all cost.
No need to thank me. No, really. All just part of the service here at CavLec.
