Publisher Pulls Supports; 'Research Works Act' Killed

crabel writes "It appears the dreaded Research Works Act is dead. The bill would have prevented agencies of the federal government from requiring public access to federally subsidized research. After Elsevier pulled its support, it was decided that no legislative action will be taken on the bill." A glimmer of hope as well: "Meanwhile, attention has shifted to another proposed bill: the reintroduced Federal Research Public Access Act, which would require public access." Elsevier has vowed to battle it, however.

Comments

Of course Elsevier opposes public access

[Anonymous Coward]

When you publish a paper in most peer-reviewed journals, you don't own that paper. A condition to getting published above and beyond the peer-review process is to sign over the copyright to the journal. You pay the publisher to print the article and then have to sign over the copyright. This is allowed to continue in large part because of the "publish or perish" environment in academia. The publishers can then charge excessive fees to access articles.

Federally funded research should be in the public domain unless there's a very good reason it shouldn't be, such as legitimate national security interests. Elsevier is objecting to the FRPAA because mandating open access to federal research would prevent them from hiding it behind copyrights.

The current system is broken in many ways. FRPAA isn't the answer, but it's a step in the right direction.