Rep. Conyers, Once Again, Trying To Lock Up Federally Funded Research

from the isn't-that-a-problem? dept

Last year, Congress finally got fed up with the fact that publicly funded research was being locked up in various scientific journals. The whole journal business is something of a scam. Unlike other publications, the folks who write the papers for journals pay the journals to get their content published. On top of that, the "peers" who review the works aren't paid for their work either. In other words, these journals get a ton of free labor... and sometimes that labor pays them. And, then, on top of that, they charge ridiculously high prices for anyone to subscribe, claim the copyright on all submitted works, and are incredibly aggressive in enforcing that copyright. An academic I knew, at one point had to consider doing an experiment a second time just to get the same results, because mentioning the earlier results of his own study might violate the copyright of the journal. And, remember, much of this is happening with research that was funded by taxpayers.

So, Congress decided that any research that was funded by NIH (which funds about $30 billion in research each year) had to also be openly published one-year after it was published in the journal. It's hard to see how this damages the journals at all. They still retain a significant monopoly right on the works -- and have a year's head start. Yet, the journal publishers have been screaming bloody murder, and even trying to force academics to pay thousands of dollars to cover the "cost" of republishing the article in an open archiving database.

And, of course, those publishers have been complaining like crazy to Congress. Last year, Rep. Conyers (who also recently introduced the RIAA's preferred legislation, and was heavily backed by the American Intellectual Property Law Association in his most recent election) introduced some legislation to repeal this requirement, though the legislation went nowhere fast. However, he's wasted very little time introducing identical legislation this year.

Right before Conyers brought this legislation back, Stanford Professor John Willinsky published a well-worth reading article explaining why the publishers' objections to the requirement to openly publish makes no sense. Their general argument is that this is the government interfering with private businesses. But, of course, that's not true at all. As Willinsky notes, the only reason that particular private business exists as it does is because the government interfered in the form of giving them copyright:

What is held to be "unfair" in the bill is government interference with the publisher's exclusive ownership over research. This is not, however, a case of keeping the government's clumsy hand off a free market. The scholarly publishing market depends on government interference in the first instance. The government allows publishers to exercise monopoly rights over this research through copyright law, a form of market interference....

Furthermore, Willinsky mentions the original, Constitutional purpose behind said copyright: "To promote the progress of science and the useful arts..." Congress gets to determine what promotes the progress, and if it's shown that open publication of publicly funded works promotes that progress, then the journals should have no argument at all. But, argue they will... so, Public Knowledge and The Alliance for Taxpayer Access are both asking people to write their elected representatives to oppose this attempt to once again lock up the very research that we all funded as taxpayers.

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Congressman Buys Recording Industry Argument That Radio Is Piracy

from the and-here-we-go-again dept

For pretty much the entire history of radio, everyone has known that getting your songs played on the radio was promotional. It helps sell albums. It helps sell concert tickets. There is no better way to prove this than to just look at the history of "payola" whereby record labels would pay radio stations to get their music heard. Obviously, the recording industry put tremendous value into being on the radio and was willing to pay for the privilege (even if it was illegal). In the US, radio stations have to pay royalties to composers and publishers -- but not performance rights to the musicians. That's because Congress also recognized that radio was a benefit to those artists.

Yet, in the last few years, with the recording industry execs desperate for more cash and unwilling to embrace business models that actually take some work, they've been running to Congress demanding that radio stations now pay performance rights to the labels. They even came up with a silly study that attempted to prove that radio play decreases sales. Late last year, it got so silly that one of the recording industry's many lobbying groups, called musicFIRST, claimed that radio is a "form of piracy." musicFIRST has been hiring big name lobbyists, like former House Majority Leader Dick Armey to push this view, and (of course) some politicians have obliged.

Rep. John Conyers has once again introduced a performance rights bill which is mistakenly described as creating "parity." It's only "parity" if you think that doubling the tax on playing music on the radio is "parity."

This is, once again, nothing more than the recording industry trying to get the government to force others to hand over money, because the labels are too lazy (or clueless) to learn how to embrace some of the new business models that are earning musicians plenty of money. And Congress has no problem helping to prop them up.

It's worth noting, of course, that among the top contributors to Rep. Conyers recent re-election was the American Intellectual Property Law Association as well as DLA Piper, the big law firm that (oh look!) Dick Armey has been working for... It's also worth pointing out that Conyers, as head of the House Judiciary Committee, just so happened to have recently abolished the subcommittee on intellectual property -- which (hmm...) would have almost certainly been chaired by Rep. Rick Boucher, one of the few folks in Congress who actually has been known to fight for the rights of consumers, and against the RIAA, when it comes to copyright. This gave Conyers, rather than Boucher, control over new IP related legislation.

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Will Howard Berman Step Down From Leading Copyright Subcomittee?

from the the-representative-from-Disney-goes-international dept

A year ago, we noted how ridiculous it was that Congress was allowing Rep. Howard Berman to run the Congressional subcommittee dealing with intellectual property issues. Berman is a well-known supporter of Hollywood and the major record labels (and they, in turn, support him back). He's from LA and has been referred to as "the Representative from Disney" or "Hollywood Howard," and he's yet to meet a bill proposing stricter copyright laws that he hasn't been in favor of approving. As Larry Lessig noted at the time of Berman's appointment, it was like allowing a representative from Detroit to head a committee on auto safety standards. However, Copycense alerts us to a story from the Hollywood Reporter, suggesting that Berman may leave the chairmanship of the subcommittee in order to take on the more prestigious and desired role as chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

If Berman does step aside, then the next in line for the job would be Rep. Rick Boucher, who has been a very strong (perhaps the strongest) fighter for consumer rights when it comes to copyright issues. For many, many years he's been pushing to rewrite the DMCA, for example. So having him take over the subcommittee would be big step forward. However, as the Hollywood Reporter notes, Boucher may be too busy on other committees that are more closely related to his Congressional district and the head of the full Committee (the IP part is just a subcommittee), is Rep. John Conyers, another friend of Hollywood, who probably wouldn't allow Boucher to push initiatives that lessened the power of copyright law. If Boucher doesn't take the job, then the article notes it would likely fall to Rep. Jerry Nadler, who represents parts of Manhattan that happen to include many major entertainment companies. It's not clear what Nadler's stance on these issues are, but he was a supporter of the ridiculously backwards bill to extend copyright protection to fashion designs, a policy that is both unnecessary and potentially dangerous to the industry -- suggesting that he's fairly susceptible to poorly reasoned arguments in favor of stronger copyright.

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