If a creative work or research endeavor costs $10,000 to produce, and public grants provide $1, does that dollar buy the public unrestricted rights to the work?
It sounds like you think it should, which is a fine position to take, but odds are that the contributors of the other $9,999 have a different opinion and may make different choices about contributing were that the case.
So — assuming that the public can’t justify the entire production cost of all grant-worthy work — what ends up happening is that you have a negotiation of rights and contracts and lawyers and all that banal, complicating stuff.
A more charitable view of the situation would be a requirement that any content which has taken public funding should always be able to be "reasonably accessed."
This allows private businesses to seek out solutions that are in their best interest, while also offering some protections to consumers. I don't see it as any different from the way we regulate other public utilities, like not allowing power companies to shut off service during the winter.
Note that I specifically used ambiguous language so that a wide range of uses for the content are possible. I don't necessarily have a problem with Sesame Street being behind a paywall, provided that the service isn't priced in an absurd manner.
This is good public policy thinking. At a minimum, if you want to take our tax dollars, you need to do _at least_ the bare minimum to benefit the public.
It sounds like you think it should, which is a fine position to take, but odds are that the contributors of the other $9,999 have a different opinion and may make different choices about contributing were that the case.
So — assuming that the public can’t justify the entire production cost of all grant-worthy work — what ends up happening is that you have a negotiation of rights and contracts and lawyers and all that banal, complicating stuff.