Mon, 16 Feb 2009

New Bill Would Repeal NIH Open Access Policy

One of my mother's favorite quips was "He who pays the piper calls the tune!" If we pay for it, we own it. I know of no private company on earth that grants it's employees full rights to products they develop on company time while on the payroll. This is exactly the same situation: and the "Fair Copyright in Research Works Act" should be renamed the "Rip Off Taxpayers Research Monies Act".

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.

(link) [Slashdot]

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