Science progress as example of free culture

Our assignment was to describe an interesting case from outside software and Internet sphere.
To think to different - something similar is in use in the world of science.

Whereas lots of scientists prefer to opt for the protection of patents or copyrights, probably the most famous example of the opposite activity comes from Marie & Pierre Curie.

Namely, public pressure in France prompted the government to give the Curies money for research. They continued to produce radium using Marie's process for chemical extraction. For awhile they had the only supply of this rare element. Generously, the Curies gave away samples to other physicists like Rutherford and Soddy. Soon private chemical manufacturers wrote to the Curies asking for more information about how to produce radium. The Curies decided not to patent their extraction process, but to give it to the private sector for free. If they had sold it, they would have been millionaires many times over as radium was in great demand.

This kind of behavior is perhaps also a representative of free culture? Any person is free to conduct research. (S)he discovers/creates something, the results and methods of survey will be published and available to others. It is possible to others to use the results of the research, based on this create something new or add something extra to the subject. Appears that it is following the principles of free culture!

Lets go further and look at the principles of scientific publishing practice.

In many ways the social science publishing works in this way. Scientists publis their detailed findings in journals that are either available completely for free - at public libraries or public websites such as scholar.google.com or free working paper series or at a very low cost (cost of purchasing a journal or access to research research database). In many cases also the doctoral dissertations are freely downloadable or accessible for any interested parties.

Coming back to example of journals - even if the journal format does not allow to publish the full results of the research process, the journals also publish the original contact information of researchers so that anybody could contact them for additional information. In many cases the researchers are willing to share also their original data provided that this would not harm the ethics of the research process (disclosing sensitive data about research subjects).

Also the research community in peer review process operates on completely voluntary process. In top journals - every single article is subject for review process: 2-3 top researchers who remain anonymous would get responsibility to review the work of their peers. In practice this means that top scientists in their field would have to spend 2-3 days of their time to read, analyse and comment on how the authors should improve their work. Let alone they would not get any payment for this. They even do not get any credit for mentioning their names! Again - this process seems to fall under the principles of free culture!