Another attempt to restrict your access to scientific research

I don't understand.

1) you want the papers to be published automatically ?
2) you want the copyright to belong to the authors
rather than to the funding agencies ?

you think the suggested change is against 1) or 2) ?

who else things this ?

anon: The current requirement (which I support) is that NIH supported research papers must be made freely accessible within 12 months of publication. That gives the copyright holder (usually the journal) time to control access for their own profit. After that time the author is supposed to deposit the paper in a public repository (e.g., PubCentral) if it hasn't been published in an Open Access journal like a BMC journal or PLoS (as examples). This legislation would allow taxpayer supported research to be locked up by a permission and fee system essentially forever.

Thanks for sharing this piece of legislation. It's encouraging to hear that NIH-funded researchers (and not just us lowly students or science enthusiasts) are in favor of free and open access. I'd like to make you and your readers aware of a resource called Your Candidates Your Health 2008 , where Congressional and Presidential candidates have been asked to respond to questions on health and research, including NIH funding, competitiveness, and more. These issues, along with IP rights and access to research publications, are important not only to those working within science, but also to our nation's economy as a whole. I hope you find this helpful.

Thanks...will spread the word on this.

It's off topic, but I thought you might be interested in this video about McCain, which was put together by the League of Conservation Voters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3ecA2L-VuQ&eurl=http://lcv.org/

Thanks for the information and suggestions/draft letter. As another scientist funded by NIH and other federal agencies, I agree that taxpayer-funded research results should be freely available to the taxpayers (including other scientists and health professionals, as well as anyone else who would like to see what they're paying for). Why do some view this as a radical idea?

> This legislation would allow taxpayer supported research to be locked up by a permission
> and fee system essentially forever

would allow, but will it be done ? The NIH can lock up research - just by not funding it.
The question is how to achieve a maximum of public research results.
And also as early as possible for critical,urgent research such as H5N1.
I'm not sure yet whether the new legislation will lead to more or less
public results. What we need is a movement to reward and favour public research.
A public list of public research, a search engine for public research only.
Good feedback for public research, marking of non-public research.
Awards preferrably to public papers,

anon: No. Research that's been done cannot be locked up by NIH. While NIH can affect funding priorities, the question is about research that has been funded and published. There is a search engine (the NIH CRISP database) of NIH funded research and this research currently must become open access within 12 months. Except if this legislation passes. Thus the stakes are high.

these journals give free access after

0 months : PLOS,EID,
6 months : PNAS,JVI,NEJM,

avoid Elsevier,Springer

(complete list wanted)

@ anon, check out SHERPA/RoMEO:- http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/

Hi Revere-

(as I sit here with a ferocious toothache, nothing like screaming pain to make issues become magically starkly clear)

OK, so the Republicans are screwing us on this one, and the Democrats are screwing us on this one, and it's all about MONEY as usual.

Let's go right to the big picture. Conservatism has been hijacked by neocons & cronyism and failed miserably. Liberalism has been hijacked by control-staters and failed miserably. Where do we go next?? Right-libertarian? Left-libertarian? Social Democracy? Or out in the streets with the proverbial pitchforks & torches? Or what?

Where do we look for a political philosophy that has enough safeguards on it to prevent being hijacked by the money-monsters in their never-ending quest to milk the citizens for every last drop? What's the big-picture solution?

g336: No one seems to know what to do at this point. One thing for sure. I don't want to give these guys a blank check. The McCain-Gramm crew has everything to answer for in this debacle but they had plenty of help from the Democrats. Obama has surrounded himself with the same Wise Men that helped us over the cliff (Rubin and associates in the Clinton years) and I don't trust them either. Whatever they do it has to have lots of oversight so that we can be sure they aren't overpaying their friends (and themselves) for bad paper and when the paper is finally salable again they don't sell it to their friends and themselves at bargain basement prices. These guys are as crooked as they come. And that the bailout includes everyone who is being hurt by this, including those with mortgages. Yes, many of them made bad decisions. So did Lehman Bros. and AIG. What's sauce for the goose, etc.

Regarding political philosophy, I am a libertarian socialist. I want the government out of my private life but I want it to work in my interest to provide things individuals can't provide for themselves: public health, environmental protection, police and fire, etc. Obama does not represent that and McCain is its antithesis. Democrats are closer to what I want but not close enough. At this point all I can do is support their good positions and beat them up for their really bad ones, which are numerous.

Yo Revere-

Looks like we're on similar pages here; the term I use for where I am is "progressive libertarian," which I'm told is not far from where you are.

I wonder about this: the option of composing a ferocious agenda that includes big picture and plenty of small details, and that we can push so hard that it pushes the neocons, cronies, and control-staters right off the far edge of the table.

For example: Compromise shouldn't mean "intelligent design" rather than young-earth creationism. Let's start by demanding to teach Darwin in the religious righties' Sunday School classes, and then "compromise" by keeping science in the public schools and religion in the churches. Let's start by demanding to put the executives of all of those financial companies in prison for fraud, and then compromise by stripping their personal assets back to $100k each as per the FDIC limit for the execs of the companies that get bailed out. Let's start with 100% income & capital gains tax above $4 million per year, and compromise back to 90% at that level and ZERO up to about $30k per adult ($60k for couples). Etc.

And let's do it with such ferocious intensity that it scares the entire kakistocracy out of their wits, to the point where they'll be begging us for mercy.