Among the encouraging and unprecendented instances of a world pulling together (while standing apart) in the face of this devastating pandemic have been the accelerated responses of open science, including publisher open access initiatives (based on library support). How to sustain this open access in the (longed for) post-Covid era is a question that bears on Jim O’Donnell’s “How could that work?” (March 31), and on my efforts to assemble a case for amending copyright law that it might do more support universal open access to research and scholarship. Inspired by Jim’s question, I'm sharing a multi-chapter draft of the work-in-progress here with a summary below to test the waters and benefit from commentary. 

A summary of the case for an open access reform of the United States Copyright Act:

1. A consensus has recently formed among scholarly publishing’s principal stakeholders (including the big publishers) that open access to published research does more than closed subscriptions for the progress of science. 

2. This consensus means that the current use of copyright to restrict access to research places the law in violation of the Constitution, which holds that such laws are “to promote the progress of science,” rather than impede it.

3. In lieu of copyright reform, the National Institutes of Health and other parties have created legal and extra-legal workarounds that compromise open access (with embargoes, final drafts, illegal copies), slow its spread, and allow costs to soar, with copyright contributing to open access’ market failure to date.

4. Yet, copyright offers a promising strategy in “compulsory licensing,” which could require, in the case of scholarly publishing, immediate open access to published research and fair compensation to its publishers from its principal institutional users and funders.

5. Such reform would be daunting, if Congress had not amended copyright nearly 60 times in the digital era (but not for science), with many of its reforms now operating internationally, which is the goal for open access copyright reform.