The Copyright Alliance has applauded US Representatives Darrell Issa and Carolyn Maloney for their bipartisan introduction of H.R. 3699, the Research Works Act. The proposal would overturn an unprecedented federal government taking of copyrights from certain authors and researchers.
In a recently issued statement, the Alliance said that providing a federal grant to fund a research project should not enable the federal government to commandeer and freely distribute a subsequently published private sector peer-reviewed article. A 2008 mandate at the National Institutes of Health requires making the content of publishers' value-added, peer-reviewed journal articles freely available online within 12 months of publication. This, according to the Alliance, disregards the significant value added by the private-sector publisher whose activities are not funded by the government.
The statement further said that this reversal of centuries of copyright law occurred without input from the affected communities, and without benefit of oversight by congressional committees with expertise and responsibility for copyright laws and enforcement. This bipartisan bill, according to the Alliance, ensures that privately-funded research works that describe or interpret federal research and are intended for public publishing will receive that treatment. Further, it is seen to preserve the rights of research funders and publishers.
The Copyright Alliance is a non-profit, non-partisan public interest and educational organisation representing artists and creators across the spectrum of copyright disciplines. It includes over 40 trade association, companies and guilds, and 8,000 individual artists and creators.
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