Have you ever tried to access a research article in an academic journal, without using institutional access through a subscribing university of library? Let’s take a look at some examples: the British journal Nature charges 18.00 USD to access a single article in its latest issue. Science, from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, charges 15.00 USD for 24 hour access to a single article, and the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, PNAS, charges 10.00 USD for 48 hours.

Why is it so expensive? Do journal publishers actually make significant revenue from sales to individuals not accessing through a subscription service? I haven’t done any research on this topic, but I would bet all of my biscuits that the answer is no. I would expect that the largest share in journal revenues comes from institutional and individual subscriptions, and that price per article per person paid through subscription is significantly lower. Perhaps this is to encourage subscriptions – after all, if one reads more than a handful of articles on Science or Nature in one year, a subscription would be better value (at least with current prices).

But what about individuals who might not normally read more than one or two articles per year? We often hear about some new and interesting research, and when we try to go a little deeper to learn about it, we hit a very discouraging pay-wall. If you don’t expect to be reading much from a single journal in the first place, you’re probably not going to pay for a subscription. At this point, you’re left with deciding to pay the premium or curb your interests.

In my opinion, perhaps the worst consequence of the current price scheme used by academic journals is that it insulates academic research from the general public, making science inaccessible, and forcing most people to depend on (often terrible and/or misleading) press coverage. I think the academic community would do a great social favour if it worked towards making primary source research content more affordable to the wider public.

Bad legislation is often a result of lobbying efforts from industrial groups trying their hardest to sustain an obsolete business model. In my last post, I mentioned a UK paper that, amongst other things, discussed how UK law is adversely affected by lobbying groups, and I also explained why I thought this was a huge problem in the US. Well, it doesn’t take long for new examples to come up. This week we saw Tennessee governor Bill Haslam signed a bill into law which classifies the “theft” of “entertainment subscription services” as a crime. “Theft” in this case may include sharing your account password, and “entertainment subscription services” refers to things like Netflix or Hulu.com. Also this week, Maria Pallante started her new job as the Register of Copyrights at the US Copyright Office by declaring at a House Judiciary Committee hearing that unauthorised Internet streaming should become a felony.

What is the problem with all this?

New legislation criminalising copyright infringement would turn many more Americans into criminals and, if fully enforced, would put them into prison. In 2008, the United States already had the largest incarceration rate in the world, at 1.6 million prisoners (according to its Department of Justice) in a population of 309 million. That’s one person in prison for every two hundred, and one quarter of the entire world’s prison population.

According to Ms Pallante, “”unauthorized copyrighted content is a significant problem that will only increase in severity if technology outpaces legal reforms.” I disagree – it will only increase in severity if business models are outpaced by technology. Copyright infringement today – and in the past, before the Internet – is not a legal problem, it is a pricing problem (see this report by the Social Science Research Council). In other words, it is a business model problem.

But what do we see happening today with copyright legislation? It is criminalising infringement, putting otherwise honest people into jail or bankrupting them with obscene fines, in order to sustain an obsolete and failing business model. Legislators in the US (and in the EU, UK, and other countries) are choosing to turn their citizens into criminals in order to prop up industries that are failing to adapt. Why? My guess would be because of lobbying efforts.

ArsTechnica has a nice little write-up about a report (pdf) that came out in the UK talking about how Intellectual Property law in the UK is based more on lobbying than evidence. I believe the US legislative branch suffers from exactly the same problem. And where this affects me, not being a US citizen or resident and all that, is that they push their legislation onto other countries via trade treaties (google for ACTA, for example).

This is a serious socio-economic problem that tends to get worse. The extent of the lobby influence in US and UK legislation is, quite frankly, ludicrous – a joke to democracy. And it goes beyond intellectual property legislation. Look at the net neutrality debate that has been raging in telecommunications. Or consider the recent lawsuit by several groups against the FDA for failing act against the widespread use of growth-promoting antibiotics in the agricultural industry – an activity that has been known since the 1970′s to give rise to drug-resistant bacteria. The FDA repeatedly put off proper regulation largely due to pressure from agricultural businesses (who consume 80% of antibiotics sold in the US) and the pharmaceutical industry, ignoring its mandate and putting the wider public in danger.

Admittedly, the interests of some industries coincide with those of the general public. And, sure, businesses owners have every right to defend their interests in a democracy. But what is not right is for government and legislation to go directly against the genuine interests of their constituency – to whom they should be accountable to, and who’s interest should always come first – in order to concentrate wealth in the hands of a small minority.

I was looking around from my vantage point over the heads of the people standing at the bus stop when a woman, walking through them, burst into a smile. I looked around again to see if I could spot what made her smile, but couldn’t find anything. I looked at her again, and now she was trying to hold back the smile. I do that too, sometimes, when walking on the streets. Sometimes I think of an old joke, or remember something funny. I thought maybe that was it. I fixed my gaze on her, and watched as she walked past me. When I turned back, an old man in a black coat, wearing a plaid scarf and a grey beret, was looking at me with a kind but mocking grin and a twinkle in his eye.

I wondered if he had noticed my eyes tracking the woman. He edged slightly towards me, so I looked away. When I looked back, he was still staring at me, so I turned away again, this time for longer. When I finally looked back at him again, he was still staring at me with a smile. He took a small step towards me, and said, looking up, “That’s a cosy spot you have there…”

I smiled, “yes it is!” I was sitting on a green water control cabinet, with my arms and legs crossed, swinging my feet. It gave me an extra foot or so of height, and a better view of the street. Maybe it was because of my sister’s cats when I was growing up that I had acquired the habit of looking for a good vantage point when waiting around.

The old man asked, “Are you waiting for a bus, or the end of the world?”

My smile widened into a cheeky grin, “whichever comes first!”

He laughed. “Where are you going?”

“Home,” I answered.

“Where’s home?”

“Clapham”

“Ah, so you’re taking the 137?”

“Yes, the 137,” I answered, turning my head towards the north end of Sloane Street, “though the end of the world might come first.”

“That’s a good bus, the 137!” He eyed me for a few seconds, and I felt a bit disconcerted. “I’m taking the bus for one stop only,” he finally continued, laughing at himself, “because I’m lazy!”

“What, just over there?” It was only a five minute walk. I thought to myself, “you can probably walk there before the bus gets here,” but said nothing.

“Yes, I’m going to the club, you see? Much better than sitting at home on a Friday night watching the box. Where do you work?”

“At Imperial College”

He gave me an inquisitive look. “It’s just a few minutes walk in that direction,” I added, nodding to the north west.

“Oh yes, yes, of course! Imperial College! I’m a client of theirs…” he said. I think he just didn’t hear me right, or perhaps didn’t get my accent, but now it was my turn to give him an inquisitive look.

“The Charing Cross Hospital,” he completed, “I go to the Charing Cross Hospital sometimes.” He paused, looked around, and then looked for the bus. “It must have been a long day for you.”

It was just a few minutes past seven in the evening. “Yes, it was. This whole week.” I explained, “In fact, I think it’s going to be like this for the next few years…”

Well, in fact, today I had woken up at 10:30 in the morning, eaten a lazy breakfast, and carried out a few chores before leaving home for work. Walking across Clapham Common on my way in – at around two in the afternoon – I decided to take my shirt off and lie down on the grass. I finally walked into the office at ten past three, having spent about forty minutes reading my book about weather and climate and getting some London Spring sunshine, and thinking, “Man, I love being a PhD student!” But – the only reason I had allowed myself the break this morning was because I had indeed had a tough week filled with early mornings, late nights, and long working days. I needed the rest, badly. So there.

So the old man asked, “Are you doing a higher degree, is that why?”

“Yes, I’m doing a PhD.”

“That’s a good place to do one, Imperial,” he commented.

“Yes, yes it is.” I looked up, and around, then back at him again. Then I realised he had been talking to me, but I had lost track, and couldn’t make out what he had said just as he concluded and looked at me expecting an answer. I smiled and nodded. Satisfied, he continued, “I think, for the time that I’ve been living here, I must have clocked over a thousand miles on the 137.”

“Where do you take it to?” I improvised, as my thoughts still wandered through my recent experiences settling back in London.

Re-adapting to London was harder than I anticipated. For the first time since leaving Brazil I would have to commute. Previously, I had always lived within walking distance of work or school. But I had turned the commute in my favour: I had a twenty minute bus ride that I spent reading, preceded and followed by 10-15 minute walks through Clapham Common and Knightsbridge. Sometimes, the walk to the bus stop turned into a long sprint, since I could see the bus coming from across the Common. The commute helped me disconnect myself from work and leave it at the College, helping preserve my peace at home. I had even begun to think that I was better off for it, after all.

But re-adapting to London is not just getting used to transportation. There is the food, which is remarkably… unique… as well as the peculiar aesthetics of home interior finishing and decoration. I never understood why plumbing and electrics had to go along the outside of walls instead of inside them. Then there’s the humidity and shade, with cold that seeps into your bones at night. London is its own reality, like any other place on earth. No better or worse, just different – and getting used to it again takes time.

“Oh, Oxford Street mostly. Sometimes I take it to Sloane Square, mostly I use it to get to the West End,” he answered.

“Yes, it’s a great bus for me as well,” I added as I looked up for the bus once more, “it takes me to College or down town all the way from Clapham.”

He motioned towards the bus approaching in the distance, “Looks like it’s here!”

“I think that’s the 19,” I said.

He squinted his eyes and put his head forward. The bus was nearer now. “Yes, yes it is.. the 19.”

As the bus pulled over, the old man pulled out his wallet and searched for his bus card. “Good bye, then! Have a nice weekend!”

“You too, good bye!”

I looked again, and the 137 showed up in the distance.

Back in the summer of 2007, I took part in the Imperial College IGEM team. We produced a cell-free biosensor for detecting catheter associated urinary tract infections by exploiting the AHL quorum sensing mechanism used by bacterial cells for coordinating biofilm formation. More information can be found in our IGEM 2007 Wiki and in our OpenWetWare Wiki. The over-arching objective of our project, however, was to demonstrate the viability of a cell-free chassis for synthetic biology, based on purified cell extracts. To that end, we created a whole new chassis section in the MIT Registry of Standard Biological Parts.

The project was an exciting ride with countless hours in the wetlab, computer lab, and white board, culminating in the IGEM Jamboree held at MIT in early November 2007 where we were awarded a Gold Medal for our efforts. Have a look at our presentation slides and video!

Related links:

Imperial College press release.

IET BioSysBio 2008 follow-up presentation.

This was my very first conference presentation!

Cell-Free Biofilm Biosensor of Catheter related Urinary Tract Infections, Built using Biobricks that Exploit AHL Signalling Pathways in Biofilms D van Swaay Presentation from BioSysBio 2008, Imperial College, London, UK 2008-04-21 12:00:00.0 Electronics Channel >> go to webcast>> recommend to friend

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