[GOAL] Re: Research Works Act H.R.3699: The Private Publishing Tail Trying Again To Wag The Public Research Dog

Wed Jan 11 13:39:44 GMT 2012

Mike Eisen, in his splendid, timely op-ed article, is completely right
that the publisher anti-OA lobby's attempts to embargo open access and
roll back what OA progress has been made is abominable. There is every
reason to hope and expect that the attempt will backfire on them as it
did the last time, when they hired Eric Dezenhall to fight NIH's
Public Access Policy almost exactly a half decade ago:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7126/full/445347a.html

Steve Hitchcock is quite right to point out that what HR3699 is aimed
at is NIH's open access self-archiving mandate, and that cancelling
journals when their articles are not otherwise accessible is not a
realistic option for institutional libraries (since their researchers
still need access to them). To go in this direction would just be to
repeat the failed strategy of over a decade ago, of threatening to
boycott non-OA journals: http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/

What is needed is OA, and that's OA mandates mandate. David Prosser is
quite right that the obstacle is not libraries but researchers (and
Thomas Krichel is quite spectacularly wrong): Not enough researchers
self-archive their articles of their own accord; that's why OA
self-archiving mandates have turned out to be so essential.

With a few blips still, the OA movement is converging on a consensus
on both the problem and the solution:

Problem: Access-denial to non-subscribers, resulting in lost research
uptake and impact, and hence lost return on the public investment in
research

Solution: Mandate OA self-archiving,

PR's 'pit bull' takes on open access (Jan 2007)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v445/n7126/full/445347a.html

Pit-Bulls vs. Petitions: A Historic Time for Open Access (Jan 2007)
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/200-guid.html (Jan 2007)

A Tale of Fleas, Tails, Dogs, and Pit-Bulls... (Feb 2007)
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/208-guid.html

The Publishing Tail Wagging the Research Dog (Aug 2007)
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/277-guid.html

Research Works Act H.R.3699: The Private Publishing Tail Trying To Wag
The Public Research Dog, Yet Again (Jan 2012)
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/867-guid.html

On Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 8:12 AM, Steve Hitchcock <sh94r at ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
> If "UKCoRR's voice may not be overly loud (yet)" then I'm glad to see Gareth trying to make it louder. But I have some concerns in this case. Does this post confuse SOPA and RWA? They seem to be referred to interchangeably, connected by AAP. Gareth concludes by committing UKCoRR to oppose SOPA, but not RWA.
>
> More pertinently, since this is the voice of UK repositories, what can repositories do beyond oppose SOPA and RWA (presumably both)? There are implications in the proposed legislation that are hugely negative for repositories, of course, but there is also a need to guard against instinctive reactions - anti-publisher inevitably but with e.g. calls to abandon library journal subscriptions (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/opinion/research-bought-then-paid-for.html?) - that are also ultimately antithetical to repositories.
>
> In promoting and protecting the role of repositories in this highly-charged atmosphere, UKCoRR should also consider carefully the wider effects of the proposals with reference to the interdependencies of green open access on which they depend.
>
> Oppose the proposed legislation for the detriment it seeks to introduce and lay open the indefensible complicity of the publishers who support it, without defusing that message by invoking old enmities.
>
> Steve Hitchcock
> WAIS Group, Building 32
> School of Electronics and Computer Science
> University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK
> Email: sh94r at ecs.soton.ac.uk
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/stevehit
> Connotea: http://www.connotea.org/user/stevehit
> Tel: +44 (0)23 8059 9379    Fax: +44 (0)23 8059 9379
>
>
> On 11 Jan 2012, at 12:07, Tate, Dominic wrote:
>
>>
>> Dear Colleagues,
>>
>> You may be interested to see a blog post from the UKCoRR Chair, Gareth Johnson, in response to this matter:
>> http://ukcorr.blogspot.com/2012/01/sopa-and-app-dumb-and-dumber-publishers.html
>>
>> With best wishes,
>>
>> Dominic Tate
>> UKCoRR External Liaison Officer
>> Phone: 01784 276619
>> Email: dominic.tate at rhul.ac.uk
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Repositories discussion list [mailto:JISC-REPOSITORIES at JISCMAIL.AC.UK] On Behalf Of Stevan Harnad
>> Sent: 08 January 2012 00:12
>> To: JISC-REPOSITORIES at JISCMAIL.AC.UK
>> Subject: Research Works Act H.R.3699: The Private Publishing Tail Trying Again To Wag The Public Research Dog
>>
>> ** Cross-Posted **
>>
>> Full hyperlinked text:
>> http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/867-guid.html
>>
>> EXCERPT:
>>
>> The US Research Works Act (H.R.3699):
>> "No Federal agency may adopt, implement, maintain, continue, or otherwise engage in any policy, program, or other activity that -- (1) causes, permits, or authorizes network dissemination of any private-sector research work without the prior consent of the publisher of such work; or (2) requires that any actual or prospective author, or the employer of such an actual or prospective author, assent to network dissemination of a private-sector research work."
>>
>> Translation and Comments:
>>
>> "If public tax money is used to fund research, that research becomes "private research" once a publisher "adds value" to it by managing the peer review."
>>
>> [Comment: Researchers do the peer review for the publisher for free, just as researchers give their papers to the publisher for free, together with the exclusive right to sell subscriptions to it, on-paper and online, seeking and receiving no fee or royalty in return].
>>
>> "Since that public research has thereby been transformed into "private research," and the publisher's property, the government that funded it with public tax money should not be allowed to require the funded author to make it accessible for free online for those users who cannot afford subscription access."
>>
>> [Comment: The author's sole purpose in doing and publishing the research, without seeking any fee or royalties, is so that all potential users can access, use and build upon it, in further  research and applications, to the benefit of the public that funded it; this is also the sole purpose for which public tax money is used to fund research.]"
>>
>> H.R. 3699 misunderstands the secondary, service role that peer-reviewed research journal publishing plays in US research and development and its
>> (public) funding....
>>
>> Continued at: http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/867-guid.html
>>
>> Stevan Harnad
>>
>>
>> On Fri Jan 6 16:43:10, Jennifer McLennan wrote:
>>
>>> Subject: [GOAL] Take Action: Oppose H.R. 3699, a new bill to block
>>> public access to publicly funded research
>>>
>>> A new bill, The Research Works Act (H.R.3699), designed to roll back
>>> the NIH Public Access Policy and block the development of similar
>>> policies at other federal agencies has been introduced into the U.S.
>>> House of Representatives. Co-sponsored by Darrell Issa
>>> (R-CA) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), it was introduced on December 16,
>>> 2011, and referred to the Committee on Oversight and Government
>>> Reform.
>>>
>>> Essentially, the bill seeks to prohibit federal agencies from
>>> conditioning their grants to require that articles reporting on
>>> publicly funded research be made accessible to the public online.
>>>
>>> The bill text is short and to the point. The main point reads:
>>>
>>> "No Federal agency may adopt, implement, maintain, continue, or
>>> otherwise engage in any policy, program, or other activity that --
>>> (1) causes, permits, or authorizes network dissemination of any
>>> private-sector research work without the prior consent of the
>>> publisher of such work; or (2) requires that any actual or prospective
>>> author, or the employer of such an actual or prospective author,
>>> assent to network dissemination of a private-sector research work."
>>>
>>> Supporters of public access to the results of publicly funded research
>>> need to speak out against this proposed legislation. Contact Congress
>>> to express your opposition today, or as soon as possible.
>>>
>>> For contact information and details on how to act, see the Alliance
>>> for Taxpayer Access Action Center at: http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/action.
>>>