"It is difficult to imagine, except rhetorically, how advocating for Open Access can be divorced from working for a different structuring of power in science."

This is one of the great secrets of academic publishing-–it is not at all in the service of transmitting knowledge generally; it is in the service of making money (for the publishers) and making reputations (for the scholars). So long as these two conditions are being met, academia could care less about whether anything its scholars do actually makes a difference in the world, except for the occasional puff piece to show to contributors or alumni. Reaching out to the whole world is the stuff that convocation speeches and university mission statements are made of, but in the day-to-day world of academia, actually reaching the world with one’s refined knowledge is not rewarded. In fact, it is often punished. Generalists, such as those who are using blogging to actually talk to the public about their ideas, are threatened with lack of tenure or advancement if they waste their time in anything but publications oriented towards their disciplinary peers.

So let’s abandon copyright in science. What does it gain us? Almost nothing, unless you author a successful textbook. Nowhere else is copyright the slightest use to a scientist and its stands in their way at every step. There are faculty who can’t use their own research work in teaching. There are libraries which can’t let the world see their theses. There are librarians who spend their time negotiating deals with publishers so they can access their own work. Even Laputa could not have designed the bizarre copyright system.