Open Access implementation: from a bottom-up order to a top-down disorder? "The Italian job"

It is worth asking whether Open Access(OA)’s main goal is to subvert the role of private companies (such as publishers) as driving actors in an oligopolistic market, to safeguard the right to access to and use of scientific knowledge itself, or to promote a knowledge dissemination system free from control by economic and intellectual oligopolies. As a matter of fact, safeguarding the right to access scientific results, without considering who grants the access and use of them (e.g. Google Scholar, scientific social networks, etc.) may not release scientists and the society as a whole from the economic oligopoly of private entities (which are able to modify their business models adapting them to new conditions, e.g. hybrid OA). Also, it may not liberate them from the intellectual oligopoly, i.e. the power to control science’s governance and its future directions that is found within the academic institutions. These uncertainties show profound conflicts in the definition of OA that, mutatis mutandis, are similar to those characterizing the free software and open source software movements. Thus, it is legitimate to ask whether the right of access is guaranteed to facilitate the market of scientific products through new business models related to research results, or, rather, to guarantee freedom of thought and the democratization of science. These doubts are even more significant when considering the abovementioned “commodification” of science that influences all academic processes. Along this line, the approach undertaken by the Italian legislature issuing the Law of 7 October 2013, n. 112, G.U. n. 236, 8.10.2013) epitomizes the mentioned short-sighted policy that looks partially at the problem without undertaking a general overview of OA.