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New Bill Would Repeal NIH Open Access Policy
pigah writes "The Fair Copyright in Research Works Act has been reintroduced into Congress. The bill will ban open access policies in federal agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH). These policies require scientists to provide public access to their work if it has been funded with money from an agency with an open access policy. Such policies ensure that the public has access to read the results of research that it has funded. It appears that Representative John Conyers (D-MI), the author of the bill, is doing the bidding of publishing companies who do not want to lose control of this valuable information that they sell for exorbitant fees thereby restricting access by the general public to an essentially public good."
But my opinion was always if the taxpayers pay for it, the taxpayers own it. Research, patents and discoveries and even software. At a minimum the government should be able to transfer licenses from one branch to another. If your research is that valuable, don't take federal money. A lot of universities are taking federal money for research and then selling those discoveries to companies that sell them back to the taxpayers. It's not always that clean but it just doesn't seem right.
If you don't like the restrictions, don't sell to the government. I love the way so many institutions, lately including banks, are acting like they're doing us a favor taking federal money. And there's always someone who will yap about government wouldn't be able to get access the best software tools. I doubt that. I'm not talking about making anything the government buys open source, just that government can move software licenses around based on need.
Funny a legislator from Michigan would be the tool of the publishing industry. I didn't realize textbooks were big business up there.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Okay, what went wrong? What happened? Has our government always been like this? Is there a single politician who won't be bought? How can we fix all this (not with these two parties, that's for sure). The Republicans have been bought by the religious and oil, and the Democrats have been bought by the copyright zealots and god-knows-who-else.
We need elections based on instant run-off or something so that third parties actually have a chance. I can't take this anymore. There needs to be some sort of fundamental change.
It seems like everything is ruined forever.
Really - I mean *really* - you want to take research we fund explicitly for public enrichment, and deny public access to the results of that research on the basis of copyright interpretation?
There is no justification for slowing down the progress of science for the benefit of *publishers*.
Rep. Conyers, you truly are a dipshit of the highest caliber.
The President does not set the budget. He may suggest what he wants, but it is CONGRESS who holds the purse strings
The Budget is a law that the President may veto. During the years when Republicans ran all three branches of government (with of course the usual level of compromise in the Senate as they never had the 60 votes), Bush NEVER vetoed anything. He exerted no discipline over his own party, pretty mortgaging whatever political capital he had to get funding for his war.
Better take a look who was in charge of Congress during those years.
Republicans were. That's why there were so many independents that remembered Clinton's balanced budgets who voted for Obama, hoping he would continue the Clintonian fiscal restraint and prudent government. Clinton actually identified the budget deficit as an obstacle to economic recovery in 1991 and he was right to close that gap. By taking new Treasuries off of the market, investors had to look for other places to put their capital and they put it in the stock market. Now, the government borrows money hand over fist, the money goes there, and now we see completely economic irrationality when companies like Intel and Microsoft, that essentially have monopolies in growth industries, pay dividends, make profits hand over fist, and still wind up getting their market valuation tanked.
This is my sig.
Republicans cost FAR more. Do some research: U.S. government debt. During the administration of George W. Bush, 5 trillion dollars of debt was added to U.S. government debt.
Ummm... try again. The President does not set the budget. He may suggest what he wants, but it is CONGRESS who holds the purse strings. Better take a look who was in charge of Congress during those years.
And Republicans held a majority in Congress for six of those eight years, and notoriously did whatever the President wanted. This does not bolster your counter-argument.
Top journals like Science and Nature have gotten much better with copyright, allowing authors to maintain copyright over their papers, and releasing content for free after some time (usually ~12 months). Also, personal subscriptions to the top journals (honestly, i don't know of anyone who reads through whole journals other than science, nature, and maybe 1 specialty journal) come down to $5 per issue. It tends to be the small specialists journals and publishers that get nasty with copyright. One of these publishers made us jump through hoops for permission to reprint a figure from an older review in a newer one. The best part is that we were publishing the new review with the same publisher! Also, does anyone know if the current open access policy covers review papers? Those would be of most value to the average taxpayer I believe.
Yes, the journals have a great business model (for them) right now:
- Publish expensive journal that libraries have little choice about subscribing to.
- Receive free content from scientists.
- Force scientists to transfer copyright.
- Get other scientists to to the hard work of reviewing the articles for free.
- Add 'page charges' for the privilege of publication.
- Add extra charges for colour figures (though most articles are downloaded, coloured electrons are more expensive).
- Charge the authors again for reprints.
- Whine about 'unfair competition' from Open Access.
- Pay off our democratic representatives.
- Profit!
This is one of the few ocasions where a complete and working business plan shows at Slashdot, without the ??? step.
Congratulations!
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
The only (significant) difference between the Democrats and Republicans is that they are spelled differently. It's like this; let's pretend they are of a different genus (it would go a long way to explaining certain things). Call the genus Politicus. This creature is typically six foot tall, hunch over, perpetually hungry and eats its own young. There are several species, Democratus and Republicus along with a smattering of rarer species of little ecological import such as the Naderus and the Ronpaulus.
While in fact separate species, they do occasionally interbreed to make a sterile hybrid call and Independus.
Politici are very aggressive and tend to wipe out any other life form they come in contact with. Other creatures shun them with avidity and so they are often found in hovels called "Capitals" where they can ply their horrid lifestyle without outside interference.
While some biologists feel they are sentient, the vast majority of Right Thinking Persons puts them just above cockroaches on the evolutionary ladder. An expedition is planned into the larger of the Capitols later this year to capture a couple and see if they have enough DNA worth sequencing.
Only experts with many years of experience can tell the difference between the various species. It is largely considered a mere academic exercise with no functional utility.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!