Another Attempt to Repeal Open Access

Please note that this post is from 2009. Evaluate with care and in light of later events.

Peter Suber writes:

Yesterday Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) re-introduced the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act. . . . The premise of the bill, urged by the publishing lobby, is that the NIH policy somehow violates copyright law. The premise is false and cynical. If the NIH policy violated copyrights, or permitted the violation of copyrights, publishers wouldn’t have to back this bill to amend US copyright law. Instead, they’d be in court where they’d already have a remedy.

For more, see:

• A bill to overturn the NIH policy
  
• New Bill Would Repeal NIH Open Access Policy (Slashdot)

As well as my law review article on the subject of NIH’s open-access policy, available at SSRN:

• The Impact of Government-Mandated Public Access to Biomedical Research: An Analysis of the New NIH Depository Requirements