"Public Access to Science Act": No copyright protection for federally funded research projects

For years the academic library community has fought what it has called a serials crisis in STM publishing, slowly making headway in pushing the public's interests vs. the interests of commercial publishers. Those efforts now appear not only to have taken root, but bloomed. This week a national campaign will shift into gear, breaking the STM issue out of library conferences and professional literature and onto popular television. A TV commercial, funded by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), touting free access to publicly funded research, will run during episodes of popular programs such as THE SIMPSONS and DAVID LETTERMAN. But more importantly, the issue will also find itself getting a hearing in Congress. This week Rep. Martin Sabo, (D-Minn.) introduced the Public Access to Science Act, a bill that would forbid the copyrighting of scientific research supported by federal tax dollars. For years librarians have complained about the scholarly publishing system: federal money supports research at our nation's institutions, with that research handed over, essentially for free, to publishers, to be sold back to those institutions at a tremendous mark-up, draining library budgets and reducing access.

"If the public were more conscious of these problems, there would be tremendous pressure for change." said Michael Eisen, a co-founder of PLoS. "It's a scandal that anyone is denied free access to the results of research paid for by their tax dollars." The PLoS's campaign is linked to the October launch of PLOS BIOLOGY, a new peer-reviewed scientific journal that will offer free access to its contents. The first advertisement, which was on view at the recent ALA conference at the Association of Research Libraries' booth, is a hilarious 30-second clip. It states "In the year 2003 the Public Library of Science made it possible for people all over the world to have access to the latest scientific discoveries." It features a man leaving his house for work, but rather than getting into his car, he simply flies. The ad ends with the PLoS mantra: (knowledge) x (access) = Progress. The campaign is a welcome voice for librarians. "The PloS is really running with the ball," said Rick Johnson, who as enterprise director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), has worked for five years to fix a "decaying" system of STM publishing. Johnson said SPARC will now "leverage the work," of the PLoS, through its advocacy networks. "We'll prepare librarians to talk about these issues. A bunch of pieces are starting to come together. The PLoS is a big part of it. We'll use their visibility." To view the PLoS ad, visit:

It will be a long, tough fight, say experts, but the first shot in Congress has been fired, and if proponents have their way, open access to publicly-funded research could be more than just an interesting idea--it could be the law.

Last Thursday Congressman Martin Sabo (D-Minn) introduced the Public Access to Science Act (PASA), which would require that research "substantially funded" by the public would not be available for copyright protection and would enter directly into the public domain. "It defies logic," said Sabo in introducing the bill, "to collectively pay for our medical research only to privatize its profitability and availability." Sabo estimate that the U.S. government spends $45 billion a year to fund research and that through the Internet such research could be disseminated to improve the lives of people around the world. "We must remember that government funded research belongs to and should be made readily available to every person in the United States." The bill was received warmly by librarians, but SPARC enterprise director Rick Johnson was cautious in his assessment. "I think the legislation is a first step in the discussion," he said. "I don't understimate the work that lies ahead. But this is exactly what we need to bust out of the box." Johnson credits the Public Library of Science for its efforts.

Johnson has good reason to be cautious. The text of the Sabo bill is remarkably brief, the language succinct, but the practical issues it addresses are complex and immense.

While the bill's aim certainly seems logical, there are myriad questions as to what the future of STM publishing would look like if research were not available for copyright protection. Who would support publication? If not the market, then government? Is government, susceptible to volatile funding issues, the best entity to innovate, disseminate, and preserve research? And finally, does Congress even have the legal right to deny a creator copyright protection, which creators are entitled to under the Constitution? Perhaps most formidable, of course, lobbyists for STM publishers are well-entrenched and well-funded in Washington. Given the current legislative climate, it would seem not too difficult for opponents to simply block the PASA from reaching a critical mass in Congress. Nevertheless, Johnson points to the legislation as solid evidence that change is imminent. "The benefits of change are so compelling I think its ultimately inevitable."

The amount of server space and bandwidth needed to host a scientific journal is close to nil. You could porbably put all the back issues of every top-tier physics journal on one DVD ROM, with room left over for a couple hundred MP3s.

The economics of journal publishing have changed fundamentally, so it is time to change the terms under which articles are published.

I am not quite sure what problem is being addressed herein. There is a long standing problem with Federal government funded work. In theory, all reports created with government funding (your tax dollars) are in the public domain. In the public domain, anyone could publish the info. Generally, they are of such low interest that 10 or 20 copies will supply the world's demand.

How about high value work done by a private contractor using public funds. Try to pry that info, which you paid for, out of a company. We aren't talking Secret, this is all unclassified open source materials. Most companies won't release it. (for example the orbital equations for satellites which Hughes developed with your money). Their approach is to limit access through the project manager (called the Contracting Officier Technical Representative- COTR ). The COTR may or may not authorize its release even to another company working on a Federal government contract.

There has been a need for legislation or an Executive Order on this for years.IMHO

It's actually worse than the article says. A typical case: The research is done by persons at a state university as part of their work or their education. The research is funded and the researchers are paid from state tax funds or federal grant funds. The researchers write the manuscripts as part of their work. The manuscripts are reviewed by unpaid experts in the field as part of their scientific work. Many publishers require the payment of page charges -- a fixed charge per page to cover part of the costs of publication. And then the publishers sell the journals to university libraries, where the subscriptions are paid for using state tax money and overhead on federal research grants.

The publishers then use the copyright laws to define the journal article as their private property. A very selective view of property rights, in my view.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.