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Congress May Kill NIH Open Access Research Rules
Savuka writes "A policy that mandates public, open access to all National Institutes of Health research is in danger. The House of Representatives is considering legislation that would change the open access policy to make it more publisher-friendly, under the false pretense of protecting copyrights. The Ars author paints the new legislation as somewhat reflective of a turf battle in Congress: 'The Intellectual Property Subcommittee clearly felt that it had been ignored during the original passage of the bill that compelled the NIH's open access policy...' The article concludes: 'Currently, the disruptions wrought by the Internet and expectations of open access are too new for a viable alternative to traditional publishing to have emerged. But it doesn't appear that the NIH policy is making a significant contribution to that disruption, and the benefits of the policy appear likely to be significant. If Congress rolls back that policy in response to disagreements with other countries over film piracy, then it could really be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.'"
Why isn't all government (i.e. taxpayer) funded research public?
Just wondering.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
If the results of research funded by the public do indeed belong to the public, why should universities and researchers be allowed to patent products coming from that same research. The universities where I've worked rely heavily on their patent portfolios for funding, as do many professors. I wonder how many scientists are willing to give up intellectual property rights from the fruits of their research?
Something else that is interesting is the composition of the Intellectual Property Subcommittee.
Its composed of 24 members, 13 Democrat, 11 Republican.
25% of the subcommittee is from California.
http://judiciary.house.gov/about/subcourts.html
under the false pretense of protecting copyrights
It's certainly not to protect the originator of these ideas : the researcher. All of the high-tiered journals I've published in have required a copyright sign-over to the publisher -- for free.
If you're allowed to sign over your copyright for free, you're in a relatively progressive discipline. I routinely pay $50-$250 per page, roughly $1000 per article, to get the publisher to accept those copyrights. To be fair, the terms of the license the publisher wants vary quite widely. Many of them now ask only for non-exclusive copyrights; most will allow the author to include the work in his own Ph.D. thesis (which is convenient); and even without the law, some allow you to submit your work to public repositories (like PubMed Central) 6-12 months after the journal's publication. Curiously, my experience has been that "Society Organs" have been associated with the most restrictive copyright transfers, where "for profit" journals have been more responsive to author concerns.