There was an op-ed piece in the NY Times last month about this issue written by Michael Eisen, a found of PLos:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/opinion/research-bought-then-paid-for.html?ref=carolynbmaloney On Feb 16, 2012, at 9:47 AM, Paula Salgado wrote: May I also suggest reading these: https://intechweb.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/selected-reading-on-research-works-act-why-you-should-care/ https://intechweb.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/open-access-on-a-string-cut-it-and-it-will-grow-back/ Can non-US based scientists sign the petition, btw? There are also several blogposts and discussions around regarding RWA and subsequent calls for boycotts of publishers that support it. A few examples (mostly from the UK): http://cameronneylon.net/blog/the-research-works-act-and-the-breakdown-of-mutual-incomprehension/ http://gowers.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/elsevier-my-part-in-its-downfall/ http//www.elsevier.com/wps/find/intro.cws_home/elsevieropenletter http//occamstypewriter.org/scurry/2012/02/12/an-open-letter-to-elsevier/ And my (very) personal views on the matter: http://www.paulasalgado.org/archives/423 Best wishes Paula On 16 February 2012 15:24, Herbert J. Bernstein <y...@bernstein-plus-sons.com> wrote: The bill summary says: Research Works Act - Prohibits a federal agency from adopting, maintaining, continuing, or otherwise engaging in any policy, program, or other activity that: (1) causes, permits, or authorizes network dissemination of any private-sector research work without the prior consent of the publisher; or *(2) requires that any actual or prospective author, or the author's employer, assent to such network dissemination. * Defines "private-sector research work" as an article intended to be published in a scholarly or scientific publication, or any version of such an article, that is not a work of the U.S. government, describing or interpreting research funded in whole or in part by a federal agency and to which a commercial or nonprofit publisher has made or has entered into an arrangement to make a value-added contribution, including peer review or editing, but does not include progress reports or raw data outputs routinely required to be created for and submitted directly to a funding agency in the course of research. ========================================== It is the second provision that really cuts the legs out from the NIH open access policy. What the NIH policy does is to make open access publication a condition imposed on the grant holders in publishing work that the NIH funded. This has provided the necessary lever for NIH-funded authors to be able to publish in well-respected journals and still to be able to require that, after a year, their work be available without charge to the scientific community. Without that lever we go back to the unlamented old system (at least unlamented by almost everybody other than Elsevier) in which pubishers could impose an absolute copyright transfer that barred the authors from ever posting copies of their work on the web. People affiliated with libraries with the appropriate subscriptions to the appropriate archiving services may not have noticed the difference, but for the significant portions of both researchers and students who did not have such access, the NIH open access policy was by itself a major game changer, making much more literature rapidly accessible, and even more importantly changed the culture, making open access much more respectable. The NIH policy does nothing more than put grant-sponsored research on almost the same footing as research done directly by the government which has never been subject to copyright at all, on the theory that, if the tax-payers already paid for the research, they should have open access to the fruits of that research. This law would kill that policy. This would be a major step backwards. Please read: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/evo-eco-lab/2012/01/16/mistruths-insults-from-the-copyright-lobby-over-hr-3699/ http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/action/action_access/12-0106.shtml http://www.care2.com/causes/open-access-under-threat-hr-3699.html Please support the petition. This is a very bad bill. It is not about protecting copyright, it is an effort to restrict the free flow of scientific information in our community. Regards, Herbert On 2/16/12 9:02 AM, Fischmann, Thierry wrote: Herbert I don't see how the act could affect the NIH open access policy. Could you please shed some light on that? What I read seems reasonable and I intend to ask my representatives to support this text. But obviously I am missing something and like to learn from you first. Regards Thierry -----Original Message----- From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On Behalf Of Herbert J. Bernstein Sent: Thursday, February 16, 2012 8:16 AM To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] Fwd: HR3699, Research Works Act Dear Ian, You are mistaken. The proposed law has nothing to do with preventing the encouragement people to break copyright law. It has everything to do with trying to kill the very reasonable NIH open access policy that properly balances the rights of publishers with the rights of authors and the interests of the scientific community. Most publishers fare quite well under a policy that gives them a year of exclusive control over papers, followed by open access. It is, unfortunately, a standard ploy in current American politics to make a law which does something likely to be very unpopular and very unreasonable sound like it is a law doing something quite different. Please reread it carefully. I think you will join in opposing this law. Science benefits from the NIH open access policy and the rights of all concerned are respected. It would be a mistake to allow the NIH open access policy to be killed. I hope you will sign the petition. Regards, Herbert On 2/16/12 6:29 AM, Ian Tickle wrote: Reading the H.R.3699 bill as put forward (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:HR03699:@@@L&summ2=m&;) it seems to be about prohibiting US federal agencies from having policies which permit, authorise or require authors' assent to break the law of copyright in respect of published journal articles describing work funded at least in part by a US federal agency. I'm assuming that "network dissemination without the publisher's consent" is the same thing as breaking the law of copyright. It seems to imply that it would still be legal for US federal agencies to encourage others to break the law of copyright in respect of journal articles describing work funded by say UK funding agences! - or is there already a US law in place which prohibits that? I'm only surprised that encouraging others to break the law isn't already illegal (even for Govt agencies): isn't that the law of incitement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incitement)? This forum in fact already has such a policy in place for all journal articles (i..e not just those funded by US federal agencies but by all funding agencies), i.e. we actively discourage postings which incite others to break the law by asking for copies of copyrighted published articles. Perhaps the next petition should seek to overturn this policy? This petition seems to be targeting the wrong law: if what you want is free flow of information then it's the copyright law that you need to petition to overturn, or you get around it by publishing in someplace that doesn't require transfer of copyright. Cheers -- Ian On 16 February 2012 09:35, Tim Gruene<t...@shelx.uni-ac.gwdg.de> wrote: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Dear Raji, maybe you could increase the number of supporters if you included a link to (a description of) the content of HR3699 - I will certainly not sign something only summarised by a few polemic sentences ;-) Cheers, Tim On 02/15/2012 11:53 PM, Raji Edayathumangalam wrote: If you agree, please signing the petition below. You need to register on the link below before you can sign this petition. Registration and signing the petition took about a minute or two. Cheers, Raji ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Seth Darst<da...@mail.rockefeller.edu> Date: Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 12:40 PM Subject: HR3699, Research Works Act To: Rep. Caroline Maloney has not backed off in her attempt to put forward the interests of Elsevier and other academic publishers. If you oppose this measure, please sign this petition on the official 'we the people' White House web site. It needs 23,000 signatures before February 22nd and only 1100 so far. Please forward far and wide. Oppose HR3699, the Research Works Act HR 3699, the Research Works Act will be detrimental to the free flow of scientific information that was created using Federal funds. It is an attempt to put federally funded scientific information behind pay-walls, and confer the ownership of the information to a private entity. This is an affront to open government and open access to information created using public funds. This link gets you to the petition: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/oppose-hr3699-research-works-act/vKMhCX9k - -- - -- Dr Tim Gruene Institut fuer anorganische Chemie Tammannstr. 4 D-37077 Goettingen GPG Key ID = A46BEE1A -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iD8DBQFPPM3kUxlJ7aRr7hoRAsKYAKDIs/jZHPBIV4AB2qrpBdXrSOn+VwCePabR Nm6+LK17jLJnPTqkjsQ4fV8= =a27t -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Notice: This e-mail message, together with any attachments, contains information of Merck& Co., Inc. (One Merck Drive, Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, USA 08889), and/or its affiliates Direct contact information for affiliates is available at http://www.merck.com/contact/contacts.html) that may be confidential, proprietary copyrighted and/or legally privileged. It is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity named on this message. 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