Roy Mark, House Panel Sparks Database Controversy, InternetNews.com, January 23, 2004. Quoting Mark Erickson, director of federal policy for NetCoalition: "The Supreme Court ruled in 1991 that facts can't be copyrighted. All intellectual property has a finite life. Any sort of legislation that creates a new property right in facts can have a profound impact. It can drive up the cost of data and potentially give the owners of the new protection the ability to charge for using the facts in a downstream distribution." Quoting Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA): "[This bill] is mischievous in that it will lock away facts from public access....This bill is testament to the power that one company can muster," referring to Reed Elsevier, one of the largest and most energetic backers of the bill.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 1/25/2004 10:04:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
