New Bill Would Repeal NIH Open Access Policy

pigah writes "The Fair Copyright in Research Works Act has been reintroduced into Congress. The bill will ban open access policies in federal agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH). These policies require scientists to provide public access to their work if it has been funded with money from an agency with an open access policy. Such policies ensure that the public has access to read the results of research that it has funded. It appears that Representative John Conyers (D-MI), the author of the bill, is doing the bidding of publishing companies who do not want to lose control of this valuable information that they sell for exorbitant fees thereby restricting access by the general public to an essentially public good."

Well, of course!

[Xeth]

Publishing companies need to make enormous amounts of money so they can do important things like:

• Paying researchers top dollar for important publications
• Offering large emoluments for Reviewers
• Hiring top-notch editors to perform quality typesetting
• Host powerful commercial publishing access sites, as universities, libraries, and professional organizations are simply unwilling to pitch in.

~

Re:Why are they so easyly bought or manipulated

[krygny]

"perhaps we should outsource our entire government to buddhist monks"

Those crooks?!!

A Million Barrel March?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's start to put some teeth behind "government of the people, by the people."

We do have that pesky 2nd Amendment to help us remind them.

Re:I think I'm gonna cry

[djseomun]

Is there a single politician who won't be bought?

Yes. Ron Paul.

Re:This is silly.

[javilon]

Yes, the journals have a great business model (for them) right now:

- Publish expensive journal that libraries have little choice about subscribing to.
- Receive free content from scientists.
- Force scientists to transfer copyright.
- Get other scientists to to the hard work of reviewing the articles for free.
- Add 'page charges' for the privilege of publication.
- Add extra charges for colour figures (though most articles are downloaded, coloured electrons are more expensive).
- Charge the authors again for reprints.
- Whine about 'unfair competition' from Open Access.
- Pay off our democratic representatives.
- Profit!

This is one of the few ocasions where a complete and working business plan shows at Slashdot, without the ??? step.

Congratulations!

Re:Why are they so easyly bought or manipulated

[ColdWetDog]

The difference between the Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats cost more. Look it up.

The only (significant) difference between the Democrats and Republicans is that they are spelled differently. It's like this; let's pretend they are of a different genus (it would go a long way to explaining certain things). Call the genus Politicus. This creature is typically six foot tall, hunch over, perpetually hungry and eats its own young. There are several species, Democratus and Republicus along with a smattering of rarer species of little ecological import such as the Naderus and the Ronpaulus.

While in fact separate species, they do occasionally interbreed to make a sterile hybrid call and Independus.

Politici are very aggressive and tend to wipe out any other life form they come in contact with. Other creatures shun them with avidity and so they are often found in hovels called "Capitals" where they can ply their horrid lifestyle without outside interference.

While some biologists feel they are sentient, the vast majority of Right Thinking Persons puts them just above cockroaches on the evolutionary ladder. An expedition is planned into the larger of the Capitols later this year to capture a couple and see if they have enough DNA worth sequencing.

Only experts with many years of experience can tell the difference between the various species. It is largely considered a mere academic exercise with no functional utility.

ban the whole campaign

[r00t]

Here's what we do:

To pick candidates, we put the smartest 0.1% of the population in a secret lottery. We choose a dozen or so. We then have federal marshalls abduct them for a few days, keeping them secluded until after the election. Each candidate gets 4 hours to write an essay to say what he intends to do if elected. We make the essays anonymous by using numbers to identify the candidates. Essays that identify the author are prohibited. Essays are only revealed to voters in the privacy of the voting booth.

Voters then get to vote, knowing only the numbers and the essays. We use something like approval voting, but requiring that the voter choose between 1/3 and 2/3 of the candidates. Each voter sees the essays in a random order and with a different set of random ID numbers, preventing any candidate from getting an advantage from ballot position. Votes are weighted by the voter's IQ.

Promises made in the essay are binding. Violations result in impeachment. Particularly grave violations are additionally punishable by death.

There. That does a fine job of keeping the power-hungry bastards out of office, gets the bright people elected, and greatly reduces the opportunity for corrupt deals. When nobody can even contact the candidate until he takes office, it's rather hard to buy him off.