Bill Banning NIH-Like Public Access Is Reintroduced in Congress
Andrew Albanese -- Library Journal, 2/4/2009
- Fair Copyright in Research Works, shelved in 2008, is back
- Publisher proponents meet today
- Conyers is apparent ally of measure
As library observers expected, 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 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."
Impact of 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 , 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 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.”
