Apparently it takes less to buy a senator than I ever would have dreamed. But I'm not sure it's as tidy as all that.

Note that the Reed Elsevier ownership of Lexis Nexis as well as the Reed Business Information division, and probably many other divisions. These people do far, far more than scientific publishing---they just partnered with the state of Oklahoma to handle statewide public-school geography testing, for example.

My point being that open access isn't a great idea just because a very wealthy (for a publisher) conglomerate bought a right-wing senator, thus proving that all scientific publishers are evil.

In my experience, they're just evil to work for.

What's more, with the recent movement towards open-access (read: free) scientific journals, they have a very immediate interest in this legislation. It's amazing to me that people think big-business, of any ilk, doesn't lobby Washington. Trade publishers in almost any field have a vested interest in the regulation of the internet and the information that flows over it. Like the automobile industry has a huge need to protect the internal combustion engine because most of their revenue comes through service and maintenance, so too do educational publishers have a huge need to protect the old way of updating texts- because most of their revenue comes from 'new editions', which may contain as little as 2% new information.

Gonna do any stuff on the FCC , or the SEC ... lots going on there.

Oooh, nice scoop, Mr. Leonard! The smoking gun (or, uhh, the burning book?) on Inhofe's hard work to defeat open access! He probably figures the constituents in his state aren't big readers of public research, so it's a no-brainer (so to speak) for him to jump to Elsevier's tune, his pockets stuffed with money they gave him. Lordy, that's one responsive Senator, there.

Reed-Elsevier spent a total of $3,380,000 on lobbying expenses

Now, if only Elsevier would spend that money hiring great editors!

I don't think anybody questions whether industries lobby, or whether a large publisher has $13,000 to give away to a campaign. That's not a lot of money, and it's hardly proof of anything. Nor does it justify tarring an entire industry with one brush, just because little is widely known about the industry. Publishers don't have the money for "green" campaigns like Chevron's, so few people may be aware of the diversity within it. (Yes, I'm prepared to defend that statement too.)

For one thing, we don't know whether Inhofe changed his position after receiving it. For another, that $3 million could be less than 1% of Reed Elsevier's profits, for all we know. And how many other senators got money? Maybe none. Compare with other industries' well-known and lavish lobbying campaigns.

I think there's an obsession with "lobbying" here, and I hear the sound of an ax being ground. 2 more notes:

(1) What's the edition model of publishing got to do with open access to new research? Sounds like you don't like the edition model. Fine---but then you seem happy to attack the industry for publishing NEW material. Is this rational?

(2) Open access doesn't necessarily have anything to do with free journals. It includes the funding of repositories for "unrefined" or even raw manuscripts as well as "free journals." Because it hasn't been specified exactly what Inhofe "gutted," I personally have no idea what it was that RE "paid" him to do. See this link for a good overview of open access: http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm

1. $13k is noise. It's a tiny number.

2. How do you know R-E didn't give him the money BECAUSE he opposes open access? You assume it's the other way around - usually, it's not. Do you think Teddy Kennedy's a union advocate BECAUSE they give him money?

I thought he did it because, even among conservative Bush Republicans, he's an unbelievably stupid tool.

I rest my case. Any time a half wit like Inhofe raises a stink about something he has no expertise in, you can bet there's money involved. Anyone remember Bob Dole's rants about Costa Rica in the 80's. Follow the money, and it lead right back to US fruit companies and a stupid trade fight about bananas.

And hey Baldie- Its Dr. Retard to you. Spent over $6k of NIH money last year on publication costs only to have one article open access, so I know a little about getting screwed by publication companies. And yes, I do work at a university where impact factor and citations do count, so there is pressure to publish in journals that so far are refusing open access. I was just trying to keep the letter simple.

1) Chevron is expanding their alternatives program because they're one of the first big oil companies whose well-capacities are dropping faster than they're acquiring new ones. BP might have been a better example, but not by much.

2) You're right, we don't know the specifics about the donation, or any motivations for the transaction. However if I were a gambling man- and I am- I can look at our current political atmosphere and be fairly comfortable putting my money on some sort of coercion, or encouragement. You may not, or the issue may be neutral as one other poster suggested, and we'll have to leave it at that.

3) What does it matter the percentage of profits donated? Just because a company is either more constrained by their profit margins, or simply smarter about the way they spend their money on politicians, it doesn't matter. I always find it amusing when people say 'oh, that's not much money- it's really insignificant'. Go and ask any run-of-the-mill senators fundraising chair how important a $13,000 donation is to the campaign. I doubt they'll say any of those things.

4) The difference for a publisher regarding open-access is that it would eliminate the competetive advantage a HUGE industry publisher would have over a startup online journal site if open-access legislation failed, or was sufficiently weak enough to allow the proposed 'tiered-service'. Tight as their budgets may be, within their market they are the lightyears above all challengers. Conversely, when new editions are published online a subscription service would be required by business standards to push those updates out to everyone, and pay for the additional bandwidth, whereas a free site would simply post the updates and avoid a large ammount of overhead costs- especially if their business model is based on page-hit indexed advertising.