Story here.
Naturally it all seems to come down to campaign cash. Michigan's John Conyers (D) is sponsoring this "Fair Copyright in Research Works Act" and not surprisingly when Discover Magazine did a bit of research into where Conyers was getting his campaign contributions, it turned out that he is getting 4 times more contributions from scientific journal publishers than anyone else in Congress. Why is that significant? Read on, McDuff...
Conyers' "The Fair Copyright in Research Works Act" will make it illegal for government agencies like the NIH and other scientists (such as those at universities that take federal money) to put scientific research online for the public to access for free. And guess where Conyers wants to force all research papers to be put? That's right, in journals published by scientific journal publishers. You know, the same ones that gave 4 times more campaign cash to Conyers than they do to everyone else?
Why is this a big deal? Simply put wide access to scientific research spurs more research and helps serve as a sort of quality control agent. Without free access to others' research, scientists might waste time and money on dead ends that others have already mined or replicate needlessly findings already found. Plus, like any other human endeavor, when information grows so does knowledge.
(...)
As Discover Magazine writes:
his may not sound like a big deal, but journals are very expensive. They can cost a fortune: The Astrophysical Journal costs over $2000/year, and they charge scientists to publish in them! So this bill would force scientists to spend money to publish, and force you to spend money to read them.
