[LIS-Forum] Copyright for Research Bill introduced by US.

[Sathya]

This new bill may significantly affect the growth of OA movement.
Not a good news for OA enthusiasts.

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by Andrew Albanese -- Publishers Weekly, 2/4/2009 12:08:00 PM The Fair
Copyright in Research Works bill, a controversial measure that would ban
public access policies similar to those of the National Institutes of Health
(NIH), was reintroduced in Congress last night, after being shelved at the
end of 2008.

The bill resurfaces as proponents in the Association of American Publishers'
(AAP) Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division holds its annual
conference today in Washington, DC. Although the text of HR 801 has yet to
be posted online, those who have seen it say it has much the same text as HR
6845, which was the subject of a spirited hearing
<http://www.libraryjournal.com/info/CA6595597.html?nid=2673> held before a
Congressional subcommittee last year.

In a statement, AAP officials praised the bill's reintroduction, and said
the legislation "would help keep the Federal Government from undermining
copyright protection for journal articles." The library community, however,
strongly opposses the measure.

If passed, the bill would essentially bar agencies of the federal government
from requiring the transfer of copyright, whole or in part, as a condition
for receiving public funding. That would prohibit measures like the recently
enacted NIH public access policy, which requires investigators who accept
taxpayer funds to deposit their final papers in the PubMed Central
repository and give the agency a non-exclusive right to offer free access
within a year.

Within hours of last year's dramatic hearing
<http://www.libraryjournal.com/info/CA6595597.html?nid=2673>, lawmakers all
but ruled out action on the bill in 2008. In comments after the hearing,
however, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), lashed out at the House Appropriations
Committee, which passed the public access mandate as part of an omnibus
spending bill in 2007.

Conyers told CongressDaily
<http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0908/091208cdam1.htm> that he was
frustrated by the Appropriations Committee's refusal to engage repeated
questions from the House Judiciary Committee, which Conyers chairs, about
the copyright and intellectual property implications associated with the NIH
mandate. He fumed that appropriators acted "summarily, unilaterally and
probably incorrectly" in enacting the mandate, and suggested the mandate was
at the center of a Congressional turf war, saying Appropriations had
encroached on his committee's "sacred turf."
 


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