IEEE: Pay $3000 and we'll remove your article's paywall.

This kind of gouging soon won't be a problem anymore. I'm in the process of creating an online service (launch date sometime this summer) that will provide completely free full-text access to <i>all</i> academic journals in one fell swoop. Think Napster for academic research.<p>I won't give implementation details for now, and I'm still evaluating different domain names, but it will be called Acropolis.<p>Yes, I know it will create a legal shitstorm, but I feel it's a small price to pay for what is at stake. To hell with it. Academic research is supposed to be free.

I have a counter-suggestion: pay $3000 to support one of the open access journals (see The Directory of Open Access Journals "<a href="http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=home&#38;uiLanguage=en" rel="nofollow">http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=home&#38;uiLanguage=en</a> for suggestions) and they'll let you post as many articles as you want. (Of course, I believe most of them will let you post for free, but by contributing articles and money to open access journals, you get to stick it to IEEE twice).

It would have made more sense if it wasn't called a "processing fee". That implies they can justify the cost with specific work associated with making a paper available.

From the website:<p><i>"Open access can coexist with traditional publishing. IEEE will continue to allow authors to post manuscripts of their articles accepted by IEEE journals on their own Web sites or those of their employers."</i><p>Hence, it would be perfectly fine for me to publish on IEEE journals. Basically, if you want to read one of my articles you just have to look for it using google scholar. Is it that difficult?

they think scholars have enough money to do the research AND pay $3000 to have it openly published?<p>it's the beginning of the end of closed academic publishing models.

I don't understand the criticism leveled at organizations like IEEE although maybe I'm missing something. These are professional organizations and consequently non-profits. So even though they charge a lot to access the articles, it implies that nobody is actually getting rich off this.<p>Edit: I know that there are some for profit publishing houses, but there are also many journals published by non-profits (IEEE being one of them).

$3,000 may be too much, but I basically like this idea. Isn’t the whole premise of (peer-reviewed) open access that authors would pay fees sufficient to cover the cost of publishing and peer review, so libraries aren’t ripped off by publishers? This is at least how PLoS and other leading open access journals I’ve heard of work.<p>If $3,000 is a ripoff, authors would refuse to pay and will pressure IEEE to reduce prices or take their business elsewhere, which has happened in a number of fields where open access journals have sprung up. Having libraries pay the publisher is not as effective for cost control.<p>Maybe peer review or even journals should die? I don’t quite agree, but if it’s true, having authors pay is probably the best way of bringing this about.

This is very topical for me. I have been drafting a paper that I was hoping to submit to the IEEE. This "might" change my mind. I'm not sure yet. There are stipulations that you can publish your work on personal sites if you get permission from the organization and you include a copyright notice at the top.<p>Incidentally, they also have an optional but suggested charge for papers containing color diagrams and over-length papers. They say that an organization should include publication costs in their budget for the research and thus the fees are reasonable.<p>The author guidelines, are dozens of pages long and I only had a week to absorb them so correct me if I missed something.

"hybrid open access"<p><i>Bullshit</i><p>What you mean is "not open access." Don't lie to us.