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 | Critics Say Publishers' PRISM Initiative Causing More Discord than Discussion
Is the Association of American Publishers' (AAP) public relations campaign against public access legislation turning into a PR nightmare? The Chronicle of Higher Education this week reported that James Jordan, president and director of Columbia University Press, has resigned from the AAP's Executive Council over the PRISM (Partnership for Research Integrity in Science & Medicine) campaign. Jordan told reporters that he resigned August 28, just days after PRISM's launch, noting that he "vocally opposed the launch of the PRISM web site and did not subscribe to arguments supporting it and opposing the NIH's (National Institutes of Health) public-access proposals." Jordan was joined in his criticism by Stephen Bourne, chief executive officer of Cambridge University Press, who slammed the PRISM initiative in a message to the Chronicle. He called the campaign's message "oversimplistic and ill-judged, with the unwelcome consequence of creating tension between the publishing community and the proponents of open access."
Jordan and Bourne's comments add to a growing chorus of criticism of the PRISM initiative, both among AAP members and among the library and research communities. Mike Rossner, executive director of the Rockefeller University Press, for example, published a letter following PRISM's launch requesting that the AAP publish a disclaimer on the PRISM site saying that the views represented do not necessarily reflect those of all members of the AAP. "We at the Rockefeller University Press strongly disagree with the spin that has been placed on the issue of open access by PRISM," Rossner claimed.
Meanwhile, legislation that would enact a public access policy for the NIH is moving forward. The American Library Association Washington Office (ALAWASH) this week urged librarians to keep the pressure on the Senate with faxes and emails as the Senate begins to consider FY 2008 appropriations measures that contain the NIH policy. Both the House and the Senate have approved language directing the NIH to require those it funds to deposit papers in its PubMed Central database to be made freely available within 12 months of publication. "As the Appropriations process moves forward, it is critically important that our Senators are reminded of the breadth and depth of support for enhanced public access," ALAWASH said.
The AAP's "public relations-oriented campaign has been controversial from the start, causing an outcry in January, 2007, when the journal Nature first revealed that an AAP committee had reached out to "PR pit bull" Eric Dezenhall to help craft its argument. ARL officials noted that the arguments made in the PRISM campaign hew very closely to the arguments first revealed by Nature.
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ARL, SPARC, ALA File Brief Saying Copyright Not an Issue with NIH Proposal
The American Library Association (ALA) and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), including SPARC, have released a joint brief arguing that a pending National Institutes of Health (NIH) mandate for public access to NIH-funded research does not violate copyright law. The brief addresses concerns that scientific publishers are gearing up for challenge to the mandate, if passed, on copyright grounds. ALA and ARL/SPARC officials, however, argued that that proposed legislative changes to the NIH Public
Access Policy do not violate U.S. treaty obligations and do not in essence represent a "compulsory license."
Concerns about a looming copyright challenge emerged after language was added in the House Labor/HHS Appropriations bill stating that the new NIH policy must be implemented "in a manner consistent with copyright law." The Association of American Publishers (AAP) has argued that "a mandate may not be consistent with copyright law," a position emphasized by Brian Crawford, chair of the AAP's Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division Executive Committee. "The copyright proviso in the Labor/HHS appropriations language does not in itself provide sufficient assurance of copyright protection," Crawford told the LJ Academic Newswire in July. "The mandatory deposit of copyrighted articles in an online government site for worldwide distribution is in fundamental, inherent, and unavoidable conflict with the rights of copyright holders in those works."
Provisions included in the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill for 2008 would require all investigators funded by NIH to submit an electronic version of their final peer-reviewed manuscripts to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central (PMC), which would then make the manuscript publicly available within 12 months of the official date of publication.
In their brief, however, ALA and SPARC/ARL said that argument had "no merit" and that contrary to publishers' suggestions, "the policy does not create a statutory exception or limitation" on a grantee's copyright. "Rather, it merely requires the NIH to condition its grant of funding to the investigator on his agreement to provide PMC with a copy of his article for the purpose of making the article publicly available via PMC," the brief states. "In other words, if the investigator chooses not to receive NIH funding, he need not provide his article to PMC. But if he elects to receive NIH funding, he must accept certain reasonable conditions, including deposit of the article with PMC."
Whether publishers' copyrights are jeopardized may not be the point of such a challenge, however. A legal challenge to the policy could effectively delay implementation of the policy.
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| Fairly Astounding: CCIA Study Suggests "Fair Use" Is Big Business
The Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) this week issued a study suggesting that "fair use dependent industries" contributed more than $4.5 trillion in annual revenue for the United States in 2006, roughly one sixth of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP). The $4.5 trillion figure represents a 31 percent increase since 2002, CCIA officials added, estimating that nearly one out of every eight American jobs is in an industry that "benefits from current limitations on copyright."
The study was released at a briefing this week on Capitol Hill, as lawmakers are being lobbied by the entertainment industry to consider legislating technical solutions to what they've characterized as rampant piracy, particularly on college campuses. Opponents have argued that technical solutions are ineffective, costly, and would infringe upon users' rights.
If, as critics suggest, money talks in politics, the CCIA (an international association of computer and communications companies that includes Google and Microsoft) and its allies have loudly joined an increasingly contentious conversation in Congress. This summer, lobbying for an amendment to the Higher Education Reauthorization Act (HERA), the Motion Picture Association of America told lawmakers piracy cost them more than $6 billion annually, and cost "U.S. industries" roughly $20.5 billion, with 44 percent of the industry's "total loss" attributable "to campus piracy." Among its provisions, the HERA amendment would have required university administrations to detail anti-piracy efforts for their campus networks. That amendment, however, was quietly removed at the last second.
Release of the study, meanwhile, is another salvo in the CCIA's Defend Fair Use campaign. This summer, the CCIA filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) arguing that the copyright warnings frequently heard during telecasts such as major sporting events were overly broad and misrepresented copyright law. That complaint was backed the Library Copyright Alliance (LCA), which filed a letter of support with the FTC. LCA consists of five major library associations: the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL), the American Library Association (ALA), the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the Medical Library Association (MLA), and the Special Libraries Association (SLA), collectively representing over 139,000 libraries in the United States.
Ed Black, president and CEO of CCIA, said the fair use study quantified for the first time "critical contributions of fair use to the U.S. economy," and that the timing was particularly important as the "debates over copyright law in the digital age move increasingly to center stage on Capitol Hill." Black said the study shows that much of the unprecedented economic growth of the past ten years can be "credited to the doctrine of fair use," and that keeping fair use vibrant in a digital age is simply good business.
"Our information policy must recognize the importance of the fair use economy and safeguard it from the unintended consequences of perhaps well-meaning but overbroad copyright regulation," Black noted in the study's introduction.
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| Boston Public Gets $10 Million to Endow Map Center
The Boston Public Library (BPL) has received a $10 million gift from real estate developer Norman B. Leventhal to create a permanent endowment for the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center. The endowment income, the library said, will "support the map center's mission of using maps to better understand human history, civilization, and the world in which we live." The map center, founded in 2004 in cooperation with the library and the city of Boston, includes more than 200,000 maps and 5000 atlases, one of the country's most significant collections.
BPL digitizes some 100 maps each month from the collection, funded by a Save Americas' Treasures grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the endowment, BPL officials said, will ensure that effort continues as well as create "tremendous opportunities" for more exhibits, programs, updating the web site, educational outreach, and teachers' resources, said map center director Roni Pick. Four years ago Leventhal initially offered a $350,000 challenge grant to BPL for its collection before donating his own $4 million collection, plus $3 million to maintain the library's maps in a new map room. The earliest map dates back to 1482, with most maps predating the 20th century, said Pick.
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Best Sellers in Religion, January 2007–present, as compiled by YBP Library Services
(13 digit ISBNs in brackets)
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Sacred Causes: The Clash of Religion and Politics, From the Great War to the War on Terror
Burleigh, Michael
HarperCollins
2007. ISBN 006058095x [9780060580957]. $27.95
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In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad
Ramadan, Tariq
Oxford University Press
2007. ISBN 0195308808 [9780195308808]. $23.00
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Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece
Connelly, Joan Breton
Princeton University Press
2007. ISBN 0691127468 [9780691127460]. $39.50
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Heirs of Mohammad: Islam's First Century and the Origins of the Sunni-Shia Split
Rogerson, Barnaby
Overlook
2007. ISBN 1585678961 [9781585678969]. $27.95
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Cambridge Companion to the Qur'an
Mcauliffe, Jane Dammen
Cambridge University Press
2006. ISBN 0521831601 [9780521831604]. $75.00
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Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs To Know—And Doesn't
Prothero, Stephen
Harper San Francisco
2007. ISBN 0060846704 [9780060846701]. $24.95
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American Islam: The Struggle for the Soul of a Religion
Barrett, Paul
Farrar, Straus & Giroux
2007. ISBN 0374104239 [9780374104238]. $25.00
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Voice, the Word, the Books: The Sacred Scripture of the Jews, Christians, and Muslims
Peters, F.E.
Princeton University Press
2007. ISBN 0691131120 [9780691131122]. $29.95
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Religious History of American Women: Reimagining the Past
Brekus, Catherine A.
University of North Carolina Press
2007. ISBN 0807831026 [9780807831021]. $59.95
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God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
Hitchens, Christopher
Warner
2007. ISBN 0446579807 [9780446579803]. $24.99
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Jesus in the Talmud
Schafer, Peter
Princeton University Press
2007. ISBN 0691129266 [9780691129266]. $24.95
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Quantum Physics and Theology: An Unexpected Kinship
Polkinghorne, J.C.
Yale University Press
2007. ISBN 0300121156 [9780300121155]. $26.00
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Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity
Pagels, Elaine H.
Viking
2007. ISBN 0670038458 [9780670038459]. $24.95
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Qur'an: A Biography
Lawrence, Bruce
Atlantic Monthly
2006. ISBN 0871139510 [9780871139511]. $20.95
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Islam after Communism: Religion and Politics in Central Asia
Khalid, Adeeb
University Of California Press
2007. ISBN 0520242041 [9780520242043]. $55.00
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Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible
Toorn, K. Van Der
Harvard University Press
2007. ISBN 0674024370 [9780674024373]. $35.00
-
Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion
Kripal, Jeffrey John
University of Chicago Press
2007. ISBN 0226453693 [9780226453699]. $30.00
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Matter, Magic, and Spirit: Representing Indian and African American Belief
Murray, David
University of Pennsylvania Press
2007. ISBN 0812239962 [9780812239966]. $59.95
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In Pursuit of the Almighty's Dollar: A History of Money and American Protestantism
Hudnut-Beumler, James David
University Of North Carolina Press
2007. ISBN 0807830798 [9780807830796]. $29.95
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Day Apart: How Jews, Christians, and Muslims Find Faith, Freedom, and Joy on the Sabbath
Ringwald, Christopher D.
Oxford University Press
2007. ISBN 0195165365 [9780195165364]. $27.00
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