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Since the introduction of the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act on September 11th 2008 by Congressman John Conyers, D-Detroit , there has been an outcry of opposition to the proposal. Congressman Conyers, who recently ran unopposed in the 14th District, introduced House Resolution 6845, which addresses intellectual properties rights, especially those pertaining to public availability of scholarly articles.
Conyers’ proposal seeks to reverse a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy that requires research articles funded by taxpayer dollars to be made publicly available online within one year of their publication.
Before this policy, the public had to pay for government-sponsored research through taxes, and then paid again when they wanted to obtain an article. Much of the research community suffered, too. Although large universities can afford institutional subscriptions, independent research firms and small universities had to decide what information to purchase, and what to forgo. It was a great hindrance to researchers and an injustice for taxpayers who paid unregulated prices for research they themselves funded.
Although it primarily concerns academia, this debate goes far beyond the academic community. Scholarly research articles provide authoritative information that allows the general public to educate themselves about possible treatment options and disease characteristics. H.R. 6845 seeks to restore the old system that forces taxpayers to pay again for each research article they want.
Moreover, these articles are not cheap, especially when one wants to read several sources. Many of the most authoritative journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and Nature, charge at least $10 to $15 per article. You may spend hundreds of dollars to obtain the very research that your taxpaying dollars support. Since the NIH policy change, however, all articles over one year old are publicly available. Moreover, because research is a cumulative, step-wise process, older articles - not just the newest - are often essential. Under H.R. 6845, all research will command the same high prices.
Dr. Elias Zerhouni, director of NIH, has stated that he sees “no evidence that this has been harmful” to publishers. According the current NIH Public Access Policy, the publishing companies still profit from the article for one year, just not forever.
According to Sujal Parikh and John Prensner writing in the Ann Arbor News, “H.R. 6845 would delay this process and make the deposition of these articles more difficult, preventing researchers, physicians, and the public from retrieving critical information. In addition, arguments by supporters of H.R. 6845 that submissions to the NIH hurt journal subscriptions are suspect. Rep. Conyers should put the needs of public citizens above those of corporate publishing houses and reject H.R. 6845”.
