Open access under attack
Since Congress voted to encourage NIH to adopt an open access policy for scholarly publications that resulted from research it funded, the journal publishers have lobbied Congress to reverse it. It seems the efforts of publishing companies are beginning to pay off with the introduction of the bill HR 6845. The bill would shift rights away from the article authors, the researchers, and back to large publishing houses. In an age of internet publishing and voluntary peer review, what possible reason could their be for such a shift? How would increasing restrictions on scientific publications increase openness and access to scientific discovery, the very foundation of scientific advancement? These sort of copyright issues cut across the partisan divide, typically aligning members of Congress from both parties from areas of the country with strong content generation industries (TV, movies, music, print). In other words, members of Congress from California, New York, and Florida (Disney) or committee chairs who get a lot of money from these big media companies typically introduce and support these anti-competitive, anti-scientific pieces of legislation. This bill is no exception, being sponsored by John Conyers (D-MI), Darrell Issa (R-CA), Robert Wexler (D-FL), and Tom Feeney (R-FL).
Would you like open access to continue? Would you like PubMed to remain a comprehensive resource for NIH research? Write your representative and ask them to oppose HR 6845. You can also support open-access journals like PLoS.
Here is an example letter you can modify to your liking and send to your representative.
Representative NAME,As a constituent who is strongly in support of the advancement of science, I am writing to urge you to vote against the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act (HR 6845). This bill takes rights away from researchers at the forefront of our country’s efforts to remain the top research nation in the world and puts them in the hands of publishing companies whose business models are stuck on the 1960’s. Open access to research is a centuries old foundation of scientific advancement. Open access to government-funded research was a long overdue stance that provides the American taxpayer with the highest return on his or her investment. HR 6845 would undermine science and devalue the government’s investment in science. I strongly urge you to vote against HR 6845. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
YOUR NAME
Posted in genomics, politics |
Tagged with: Creative Commons , freedom , genomics , politics , science
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September 18th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
If you use this template, correct the typo: “our countries efforts” should be “our country’s efforts.” I wrote a modified form of this letter to my representative:
As a constituent who is strongly in support of the advancement of science, I urge you to vote against the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act (HR 6845). This bill takes away control of taxpayer-funded information from researchers and institutions at the forefront of our state’s and country’s scientific efforts and puts it in the hands of publishing companies who often are based in foreign countries. Open access to research information is crucial to scientific advancement. Open access to government-funded research was a long overdue stance that provides the American taxpayer with the highest return on his or her investment. HR 6845 would undermine science and devalue the government’s investment in science. I strongly urge you to vote against HR 6845, which I believe will negatively impact research efforts in . Thank you for your time.
September 18th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Part of the letter didn’t make it through. The next to last sentence should be “I strongly urge you to vote against HR 6845, which I believe will negatively impact research efforts in -insert your state here-.
September 18th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Corrected.
September 18th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
[...] Clearly, the publishers think there is. “[John] Conyers, a liberal Democrat whom one might expect to be on the other side of this issue, is taking harsh aim at a new National Institutes of Health (NIH) policy requiring NIH-funded scientists to archive their published papers in a publicly accessible database within a year of publication.” A recent Nature Blog post (The Great Beyond: Open access: public good or publishers’ evil?) details a seedy melange of scientific publishing houses, lobbyists, and Congress. Another post at PolITiGenomics (Open access under attack) [...]
September 19th, 2008 at 6:02 am
I am of the view that modern era needs to be an open era with access to every sort of information available to one and all without any sort of caste,creed color or any other discremination. I hope that open access will be there for us to support our reaearch and allied activities.
October 1st, 2008 at 10:22 am
What happened to the bill?
October 2nd, 2008 at 8:37 am
Giorgio, the bill has only been introduced; no further action. You can track its progress (or hopefully lack of progress) on GovTrack HR 6845. With all that is currently going on and the Congress needing to get out of town to campaign, hopefully this bill will never be acted on.
October 23rd, 2008 at 1:40 pm
As a scientist, I am sick and tired of paying money to find out what other researchers did with my (taxpayer’s) money.
The straw that broke my camel’s back was when I had to pay $30 for a PDF copy of my own research article published in J. Comp. Neurol.
My research had been funded 100% by NIH, on taxpayer’s dollars. But the journal wouldn’t even give me a copy of my own paper unless I paid $30.
We our lab pays the upfront cost of $1500 to publish with journals that offer “Open Access for a fee”. I don’t like it, but I can live with that if it makes our work freely available to all.
HR 6845 needs to be stopped. Please everyone, write Congressman Conyers and tell him you aren’t happy with his bill.