Re: OA interview: Poynder on Dove Medical Press

["Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>]

What if the company is owned by an investment fund?  Some of them 
have names like "95060 Capital Fund IV."  And the investors in 
the fund can be other funds (95060 Capital Fund V invests in 
95060 Capital Fund IV).  Provided that the tax laws are fully 
complied with, I don't see the point or the practicality of 
enforcing transparency of ownership.  This gets us back to the 
rigor of the peer review process, for which transparency is 
everything.

Joe Esposito

----- Original Message -----
From: "Phil Davis" <pmd8@cornell.edu>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 2:54 PM
Subject: OA interview: Poynder on Dove Medical Press

> Richard Poynder continues his interviews of individuals 
> involved in OA publishing, recently posting an interview of the 
> owner of Dove Medical Press.  The interesting thread that 
> Poynder explores is the lack of transparency (and thus 
> accountability) of some of these start-up companies.  While 
> certainly not limited to OA publishers, the open access 
> movement is very focused on transparency and public 
> accountability as central framing issues.
>
> One may argue that access to public funds requires both access 
> to the output of the research AND access to how the money was 
> spent. You can't have it both ways.
>
> "To add to the uncertainty, the ownership of some of these 
> companies can be a little obscure. When earlier this year I 
> raised the issue of ownership with the editorial director of 
> Bentham Science Publishers, Matthew Honan, he would say only 
> that the company was owned by "a number of individuals, and the 
> legal part of the business is based in the United Arab 
> Emirates". Asked to specify who the individuals were Honan 
> insisted, "I can't disclose their names to you."
>
> Poynder concludes his post with:
>
> "...OA publishers might be better regarded by the research 
> community if they were more transparent, both about their 
> business practices and their ownership. After all, it is 
> primarily public money that researchers will be using to pay to 
> have their scholarly papers published in OA journals. Is it not 
> reasonable therefore for taxpayers to expect to know exactly 
> what is being provided for that money, and who will benefit 
> from any profits that are made as a result?"
>
> see:
> The Open Access Interviews: Dove Medical Press
> http://poynder.blogspot.com/
>
> --Phil Davis