Re: New US Bill re. Copyright/Federal Funding

["Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>]

This is exactly right.

You don't have to support the positions of the AAP and the AAUP 
to feel very uncomfortable with what the NIH is doing.  The NIH 
is very much in its right to ask for things that it has paid for. 
It is not in its right to ask for things it has not paid for. 
The NIH pays for research, and it could easily insist (as others 
have remarked on this list) that researchers file reports of 
their work on an NIH-sponsored site.  What the NIH has not paid 
for is the editorial review (of which peer review is one 
component, and not the largest) of papers; nor has it paid for 
the imprimatur of the publications that perform the editorial 
review.

On some level this is about taking property that does not belong 
to you.  We teach our children differently.

Joe Esposito

----- Original Message -----
From: "Marc Brodsky" <brodsky@aip.org>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2008 2:57 PM
Subject: Re: New US Bill re. Copyright/Federal Funding

> There seem to be some contradictions here.
>
> On one hand the it's OK for the government to usurp the rights 
> of authors as a condition of funding, while on the other hand a 
> complaint is made about the publishers having contracted for 
> those rights in exchange for their services.
>
> The facts are that it costs to provide publishing services and 
> that the government in demanding access to the "extrinsic" 
> value added by publishers is asking for more than just a report 
> of what it has funded. Many publishers have oft repeated that 
> the government is welcome to ask its funded researchers for 
> such reports, untarnished by whatever value and cost is added 
> by the publishers (or the authors often on their own time after 
> their funding has been exhausted). However NIH, as Dr. Zerhouni 
> reiterated in his recent testimony to Congress, does not want 
> to show the public the untrustworthy unreviewed reports without 
> the value added by the publishers who do essential peer review 
> - and let me add, some other tasks that may have some value 
> like the stamp of the journal brand and prestige (if any), 
> editorial feedback, distribution, copyediting, linking, 
> discoverability, posting of free abstracts and searching, 
> errata, archiving, etc.
>
> Of course, not only does it cost to provide publishing 
> services, it is also a marketing opportunity for some 
> publishers and a service opportunity for others like university 
> presses and learned societies - and sometimes commercial 
> publishers. The opportunity is exemplified by a wide variety of 
> business models for all concerned: authors, publishers, 
> libraries, readers, governments, foundations, etc.  These 
> models have changed drastically in the last decade and all 
> stakeholders have opportunities to experiment with different 
> ones. As an past researcher, author, research administrator, 
> library funder, and publisher, I personally worry about the 
> heavy hand of government tampering with dynamically changing 
> experiments to favor models that limit choices and biases the 
> publishing process away from one dependent on buyer evaluation 
> of a journal worth.
>
> Respectfully with apologies for the long windedness of an email
> response, Marc Brodsky
>
>>>>

> From: Peter Hirtle <pbh6@cornell.edu>
> To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
> Date: 9/24/2008 7:35 PM
> Subject: Re: New US Bill re. Copyright/Federal Funding
>
> At 04:01 AM 9/23/2008, Sandy Thatcher wrote:
>
>>As a footnote, I would add that university presses are concerned
>>about the government's move to make the papers of the Founding
>>Fathers, as published with editorial apparatus by a number of
>>presses, freely available on the Web without compensation to the
>>presses or editors, whose work has been supported only in part
>>by federal funding and in substantial part by private parties
>>also. This kind of expropriation would severely undermine the
>>ability of presses to continue publishing these valuable papers.
>
> There is reason to be concerned about this initiative, but not
> for the reasons that Sandy outlines.  You can see my blog posting
> called "Free the Founding Fathers!" at
> http://blog.librarylaw.com/librarylaw/2008/06/free-the-foundi.html
> for the details, but the heart of the problem is that NARA seems
> to feel that the best way for people to get access to volumes
> whose editing and often publication costs have already been paid
> for is by having people subscribe to expensive university press
> delivery systems that limit how the work can be used.
>
> There is no question that the editorial work of the projects has
> been top-notch, if sorely underutilized.  Similarly, some
> university presses are providing useful interfaces with
> value-added features that are well worth the subscription costs.
> There is no reason, however, that the government should not also
> take advantage of its license (a condition of providing the
> grant) to make this material available for free.  If editorial
> projects do not like the government's license, they should not
> have accepted the editorial funding - just as publishers who do
> not like the NIH mandate should decline to publish articles
> funded by NIH (rather than trying to interfere with the author's
> rights as the copyright owner to license things as he or she sees
> fit).
>
> Peter B. Hirtle
> CUL Intellectual Property Officer
> Scholarly Resources and Special Collections
> Cornell University Library
> Ithaca, NY  14853-5301
> peter.hirtle@cornell.edu
> http://www.copyright.cornell.edu