Is NIH Public Access Mandate In Danger?
In less than 48 hours, the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property of the House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on a bill that could all but ban public access policies such the one recently enacted at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Staff in Rep. John Conyers office (D-MI) today confirmed that a hearing, scheduled for 1 p.m. on September 11, is still on, but said that the text of the bill at the center of the hearing, tentatively titled the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act was still in draft, and that a witness list may not be posted until as late as the end of business tomorrow, just hours before the hearing. Although it remains unclear what form the bill will ultimately take, it seems clearly aimed at toppling the recently enacted NIH public access policyand will almost certainly hinge on copyright. From the outset publishers have maintained the NIHs mandatory public access policy encroaches on publishers abi
