Re: Sabo Bill: Measure Calls for Wider Access to Federally Financed Research

["Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@worldnet.att.net>]

There appears to be a misunderstanding about making research information
available when it is funded by the public.  Such research is already
available; there is no need for a law to change that.  This is true
whether the information is mounted on a Web server administered by a
library or published by such demons as Reed Elsevier or John Wiley.  What
is not necessarily available is the tangible expression of that research,
which may be copyrighted.  You cannot copyright an idea.  You just can't.  
Ideas are in the public domain.  This is all a tempest in a teapot.  
Example:  There is not a single person on this mailing list who cannot
summarize the ideas in Alan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind,
including those who haven't had the misfortune of having read it.  The
book is protected by copyright, but you can summarize the ideas anyway.  
This is why nonfiction books go out of print and stay out of print,
because the widespread circulation of the ideas makes the original books
less and less essential. Copyright and the rapaciousness of publishers
have nothing to do with it.

Joe Esposito

----- Original Message -----
From: "Lavoie,Brian" <lavoie@oclc.org>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2003 2:25 PM
Subject: RE: Sabo Bill: Measure Calls for Wider Access to Federally Financed
Research

> The OECD released a report in March that is relevant to the issues raised
> in the Sabo bill. The report advocates the principle that "publicly funded
> research data should be openly available to the maximum extent possible.
> Availability should be subject only to national security restrictions;
> protection of confidentiality and privacy; intellectual property rights;
> and time-limited exclusive use by principal investigators." Also:
> "publicly funded research data are a public good, produced in the public
> interest. As such they should remain in the public realm."
>
> The report recommends that national governments actively promote public
> access to publicly-funded research, by incorporating this principle into
> the terms of research grants provided by government funding agencies, and
> by maximizing access to research produced by government entities.
>
> The report is (freely!) available at:
> http://dataaccess.ucsd.edu/Final_Report_2003.pdf
>
> Regards,
> Brian Lavoie
> OCLC Research
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ann Okerson [mailto:ann.okerson@yale.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2003 8:32 PM
> To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
> Subject: Sabo Bill: Measure Calls for Wider Access to Federally Financed
> Research
>
> Re. the article below:  More details about the Sabo bill and a citation to
> it, when it is presented, will be helpful in understanding its aims and
> how they can be realized.
>
> For example, is not clear how this bill can provide or assure open access
> to published journal articles.  Open access, as recently defined in the
> journals context, is a not only an ideal, but it is also a business model.
> Open access would make articles available for free to all from moment of
> publication because the costs of publication *and* permanent access have
> been paid in advance behind the scenes, by authors, sponsors, foundations,
> government grants, and the like, rather than thru customer subscription.
> So, it is not easy to see how letting authors keep copyright over their
> works, or even ceding copyright to the US government, solves the problem
> of supporting peer reviewed journals financially.  That has to happen
> somehow, no matter who owns copyright.  There are real costs.
>
> But maybe the bill is not intended to support open access for journal
> articles so much as to encourage our ability to go to government agencies'
> web sites and read accounts & results of government funded research
> projects and their findings.  Those reports are not the same as journal
> articles, for the most part. Ann Okerson/Yale Library