The Fair Copyright in Research Works Act is supposedly intended to protect the intellectual property of scientists and their funding sources. Right now the NIH requires that all research funded by them be made available to the public for free after a certain proprietary period (in addition to their usual publication in peer-reviewed journals). Passing the bill would allow the NIH (and other federal groups such as the NSF, etc.) to remove this requirement from federally funded researchers, so that the researchers could choose to (or additional private funding sources could require them to) only publish their work in expensive peer-reviewed journals.
There is some debate about whether this is really as bad as it sounds. On the one hand, it sounds like the Act would allow the stifling of scientific communications and would mean that the American public would have to pay twice to see the work that their taxes paid for. On the other hand, it's my understanding that all federally funded research is required to be public domain and it's not clear that this Act would counteract that, or that the NIH and other federal groups would choose to do what the Act would allow. In addition, it might allow researchers to use multiple funding sources for a project which they may be unable to do right now - pharmaceutical companies may require NDAs for their work which the NIH regulations currently rule out since the researchers have to publish publicly.
Some links for more reading
The Act itself, Library of Congress
Phil Plait/Bad Astronomer's first post
His second post
A lawyer's opinion
Financial Times article
"On the other hand, it's my understanding that all federally funded research is required to be public domain and it's not clear that this Act would counteract that, or that the NIH and other federal groups would choose to do what the Act would allow."
ReplyDeleteThe law would mean that the research would no longer be public domain. Previously people could publish first and then give the findings to the government as publishing rights were basically one-time publication rights. This law would mean the government would have no publication rights to the research they funded -- NIH and all departments -- as the publishers want all world publishing rights with no right for reprint remaining with the author (may be primarily database providers as many academic and scholarly journals oppose this law). The law is rather draconian when you read it. all NIH wanted was to republish someones findings and they gave the researchers time to publish somewhere else first. Asking for reprint rights when you give someone more than a million dollar grant funding as opposed to most journals not paying the researchers anything does not seem excessive on the part of NIH. The bill has been reintroduced as HR801 after failing the hearings in the Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property subcommittee has HR 6845 last year. It is now in the subcommitee Subcommittee on Courts and Competition.
I am not a publisher. I've worked as a researcher in an academic setting and am now a student in library school. I feel researchers should get their grants but if it comes a federal source, the primary financial benefit should be to the public and not to publishers who don't pay for the research and often only pay the researchers in reputation points.