House Rehashes Bill Blocking Access to Publicly Funded Research
The Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, which would block free access to research conducted by taxpayer-funded organizations such as the National Institutes of Health, was introduced February 3 in the House by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). H.R. 801 duplicates word-for-word H.R. 6845, which was shelved at the end of 2008. The legislation essentially bars government agencies from requiring authors to transfer their copyright in order to receive public funding for their research.
If enacted, H.R. 801 would repeal the NIH Public Access Policy, which requires NIH-funded research to be made publicly available following a 12-month embargo, and would prevent other federal agencies from enacting similar open-access policies.
The American Library Association and seven other library groups, along with the American Society for Cell Biology and Public Citizen, wrote (PDF file) to members of the House Judiciary Committee February 13 urging representatives to oppose the bill and to support movement toward making publicly funded research freely available. Open access “allows for greater sharing of information, speeding discovery, medical advances, and innovations,” the letter stated.
However, the Association of American Publishers welcomed the bill’s reintroduction, stating in a February 4 press release that the bill “would help keep the Federal Government from undermining copyright protection.” AAP Vice President for Government and Legal Affairs Allan Adler commented that the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act would “preserve the incentives for the private-sector investments in the journal publishing community.”
Copyright Alliance also praised the bill. Executive Director Patrick Ross said February 4, “The mere fact that a scientist accepts as part of her funding a federal grant should not enable the federal government to commandeer the resulting peer-reviewed research paper and treat it as a public domain work.”
The 10 organizations opposing H.R. 801 emphasized that they fully respect copyright but that copyright first belongs to the author, and that the NIH policy leaves researchers free to transfer their copyrights to a journal publisher or anywhere they so choose. The groups went on to explain that the policy, in addition to ensuring broad public access, also established a permanent archive of publicly funded scholarship, which created accountability and transparency; the change in the NIH policy from a voluntary one when it was implemented in 2005 to mandatory in 2007 has led to the deposit of nearly 3,000 new biomedical manuscripts per month, according to the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition.
Corey Williams, associate director of ALA’s Washington Office, told American Libraries that she is “watching very carefully and anticipates this bill moving forward.” She added that this bill is in “total opposition” to the Obama administration’s stance on openness and transparency, and stressed the importance of getting grassroots advocacy behind ALA’s efforts to counter the legislation.
Posted on February 20, 2009. Discuss.