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 | Is NIH Public Access Mandate In Danger?
In less than 48 hours, the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property of the House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on a bill that could all but ban public access policies such the one recently enacted at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Staff in Rep. John Conyers’ office (D-MI) today confirmed that a hearing, scheduled for 1 p.m. on September 11, is still on, but said that the text of the bill at the center of the hearing, tentatively titled the “Fair Copyright in Research Works Act” was still in draft, and that a witness list may not be posted until as late as the end of business tomorrow, just hours before the hearing. Although it remains unclear what form the bill will ultimately take, it seems clearly aimed at toppling the recently enacted NIH public access policy—and will almost certainly hinge on copyright.
From the outset publishers have maintained the NIH’s mandatory public access policy encroaches on publishers’ ability to manage copyrighted content. In July 2007, when the policy was introduced, Brian Crawford, president of the publications division of the American Chemical Society (ACS) and chairman of the executive council of the Professional/Scholarly Publishing (PSP) Division of the Association of American Publishers (AAP), told LJAN that “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.”
Just before the mandatory public access bill’s passage in December 2007, publishers succeeded in adding a key phrase: that the NIH policy must be implemented “in a manner consistent with copyright law.” As LJ reported then, that simple phrase positioned publishers for a possible legal or legislative challenge to the policy—a challenge that began to seem almost certain in recent months. In comments to the NIH this spring, AAP included a legal memo from law firm Proskauer Rose backing publisher claims that the NIH policy conflicts with copyright law. In June, after NIH director Elias Zerhouni denied publishers’ request that the policy go through a federal rulemaking process, a legal action or legislation remained as virtually a last resort.
The hearing on Thursday could address complaints such as those voiced by AAP VP for legal and government affairs, Allan Adler, who has long maintained that the current policy was never fully examined by Congress because “the statutory authority for the NIH policy was enacted as a rider on appropriations legislation without hearings or studies to assess its merits.” Officials in the library community, however, dispute Adler’s view, noting that NIH policy has been considered by Congress since its first iteration in 2004, and has gone through an extensive process of soliciting comments and public opinion.
The NIH mandatory public access policy, strongly supported by librarians, requires researchers to deposit their final papers funded whole or in part by NIH, in the PubMed Central repository. Officials at SPARC and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), have consistently denied that the NIH public access policy conflicts with copyright, but anticipated some sort of copyright challenge would arise, even preparing and updating a memo of their own, refuting publishers’ copyright claims.
Notice of the hearing and pending legislation comes as submission statistics for PMC indicate the mandatory policy is having a dramatic effect. For July 2008, submissions to PMC nearly hit 4000 (3999). In July 2007, under the NIH’s “voluntary” policy, PMC saw just 721 submissions.
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Google Says It Will Anonymize Data After Nine Months
In a step to improve its privacy policies, global search giant Google this week announced that it will “anonymize” IP addresses on its server logs after nine months, instead of its previous 18-month retention policy. The change, noted Google officials, comes after considerable public and regulatory pressure in the past year.
Google officials detailed the change in a filing this week with European Union (EU) privacy regulators, and said it was doing its best to strike the right balance between sometimes conflicting factors like “privacy, security, and innovation.” Officials at the European Commission have yet to comment on the announcement.
On its blog, Google defended itself as an industry leader in privacy standards, and its practices in keeping user data. “When we began anonymizing after 18 months, we knew it meant sacrifices in future innovations in all of these areas,” Google officials wrote. “We believed further reducing the period before anonymizing would degrade the utility of the data too much and outweigh the incremental privacy benefit for users.” After “months of work,” however, Google said its engineers have developed methods for “preserving more of the data’s utility while also anonymizing IP addresses sooner.”
In June of last year, Google was slammed by Privacy International (PI), a London-based institute that issued an “interim” report, rating Google’s privacy practices at the bottom of 23 services. At the time, PI noted that Google kept users’ web histories for up to two years.
Although it said that implementation details were not yet hammered out, Google noted in its EU filing that it recognizes that “limiting the amount of time that our raw logs are retained is an important privacy protection for our users.”
Meanwhile, another factor may also be helping to shorten Google’s data retention window. In a word: Viacom. This summer, Viacom, which is currently suing Google for a $1 billion over its YouTube service, was granted access by the court to Google’s user logs. New York Times technology blogger Saul Hansell questioned whether it was wise for Google to keep so much user information. “If [Google] continues to assemble so much data about so many people,” Hansell wrote, “it will become an ever-more attractive target for lawsuits and investigations.”
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| In Closely Watched Copyright Case, J.K. Rowling Prevails
In a closely watched copyright case, U.S. District Judge Robert P. Patterson on September 8 quashed school librarian Steven Vander Ark’s The Harry Potter Lexicon, , ruling that it infringed author J.K. Rowling’s copyrights. Patterson was careful to note, however, that while ruling against Vander Ark’s proposed book with Michigan-based publisher RDR books, other potential reference works or literary guides should not be discouraged.
At trial, publisher RDR Books claimed that the Lexicon was fair use, according to provisions accorded to reference works. Patterson, however, in a lengthy ruling agreed with Rowling, that the book added too little of its own value and appropriated “too much of Rowling’s creative work” to be considered a reference guide. However, Patterson added, “reference works that share the Lexicon’s purpose of aiding readers of literature generally should be encouraged rather than stifled.”
The book was to be based on Vander Ark’s popular web site the Harry Potter Lexicon, which he has run since 2000, and which Rowling herself had once praised. While the book is now been permanently enjoined from publication, notably, the site remains online.
Warner Brothers, Rowling’s publisher and co-plaintiff, hailed the ruling. “As a content company, it is imperative that we work vigorously on all fronts to protect the intellectual property rights of those who create the stories and characters, words, pictures and music that entertain and benefit the worldwide audience,” it said. RDR Books, defended by the Stanford University Fair Use and Copyright Center, found a silver lining, saying in a statement it was “encouraged by the fact the Court recognized that as a general matter authors do not have the right to stop the publication of reference guides and companion books about literary works.” As for the Lexicon, RDR said it was “disappointed with the result, and RDR is considering all of its options.”
In addition to stopping publication, Patterson awarded Rowling, who has raked in billions from her Potter empire, $6750 in statutory damages, $750 per infringed work, the least amount possible—and roughly the amount Vander Ark said he has made running the web site over the past eight years. A true fan, Vander Ark, who even looks like Harry Potter, said he bore “no ill will whatsoever to Ms. Rowling” and was looking forward to “moving on with other projects.”
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| Call for Nominations: Library Journal Teaching Award
The Library Journal (LJ) Teaching Award, sponsored by ProQuest, recognizes excellence in educating the next generation of librarians; deadline is September 29, 2008. The annual award, now in its second year, honors the winning LIS teacher with an article in the November 15 issue of LJ, a $5000 prize, and a reception at the 2009 ALA Midwinter Meeting in Denver.
Nominees should illustrate student-centered thinking in all aspects of teaching; have a track record as career builder, and be a mentor; communicate core principles of librarianship, such as intellectual freedom, privacy, and a belief in the value of library service; effectively integrate theory, practice, and research, infusing teaching with real-life librarianship; be forward thinking, keep up with cutting-edge issues in the profession and in teaching, including those dealing with technology and its uses in the library field.
Eligibility: anyone who has taught a course at an ALA-accredited master’s program since September 3, 2007, as full-time faculty or as an adjunct, is eligible. Current students or recent graduates and faculty members are encouraged to nominate candidates. Students must have taken a class from the nominee within the past two years.
Candidates will be evaluated primarily on the basis of the nominating letter (no more than two pages in length or email equivalent), but nominators are welcome to submit also letters of support and supplementary material (examples of coursework, etc.) for the judges to consider.
Please send nominations to:
LJ Teaching Award
Library Journal
360 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10010
or via email to akim@reedbusiness.com.
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Library Journal Academic Newswire
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