Public access policy challenge

Library Journal reports that the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property of the House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee is scheduled to meet on September 11th to hear publishers' concerns that public access policies conflict with copyright and intellectual property laws. Although no text for proposed legislation has been released, it is reported that it is tentatively titled the "Fair Copyright in Research Works Act."

Publishers contend that public access policies, the NIH policy in particular, undermine publishers' ability to exercise their copyrights in published articles and threatens the intellectual freedom of authors.

Anticipating such concern, library organizations (ALA, ARL & SPARC) released a memo a year ago asserting that the policy does not create a statutory exception or limitation to copyright but rather requires as a condition of its grant of funding the agreement to make the article publicly available.

LJ also reports that submissions to PubMed Central in July 2008 were at an all time high of 3,999 compared to 721 in July 2007 when the program was voluntary.