Research Works Act

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S. Kritikos

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Jan 29, 2012, 9:36:58 AM1/29/12

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Folks, disturbing legal developments:

Research Works Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Works_Act

"The Research Works Act, also known as H.R. 3699, is a bill that was
introduced in the United States House of Representatives at the 112th
United States Congress on December 16, 2011, ... The bill contains
provisions to prohibit open access mandates for federally funded
research[3] and effectively revert[4] the NIH's Public Access Policy
that allows taxpayer-funded research to be freely accessible
online.[5] If enacted, it would also severely restrict the sharing of
scientific data."
...

Dr Mike Taylor from the University of Bristol said that the bill's
denial of access to scientific research would cause "preventable
deaths in developing countries" and "an incalculable loss to science",
and says that Representatives Issa and Maloney are motivated by large
donations by the academic publisher Elsevier.

Academic publishers have become the enemies of science, by Mike
Taylor, Jan 16, 2012
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jan/16/academic-publishers-enemies-science

"If passed, the Research Works Act (RWA) would prohibit the NIH's
public access policy and anything similar enacted by other federal
agencies, locking publicly funded research behind paywalls. The result
would be an ethical disaster: preventable deaths in developing
countries, and an incalculable loss for science in the USA and
worldwide. The only winners would be publishing corporations such as
Elsevier (£724m profits on revenues of £2b in 2010 – an astounding 36%
of revenue taken as profit)."

Also, a list of academics opposing RWA by Cameron Neylon, Science and
Technology Facilities Council - UK
https://plus.google.com/109191289222453878220/posts/azTtgF893E5

Also a blog post by Peter Murray Rust from last fall following a
conference in London:

Open Research Reports
http://blogs.ch.cam.ac.uk/pmr/2011/10/23/open-research-reports-what-jenny-and-i-said-and-why-i-am-angry/

Needless to say this goes completely against what this list is about,
and I certainly hope Obama will have some sense and veto it