Reading the H.R.3699 bill as put forward (http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:HR03699:@@@L&summ2=m&;) it seems to be about prohibiting US federal agencies from having policies which permit, authorise or require authors' assent to break the law of copyright in respect of published journal articles describing work funded at least in part by a US federal agency. I'm assuming that "network dissemination without the publisher's consent" is the same thing as breaking the law of copyright.
It seems to imply that it would still be legal for US federal agencies to encourage others to break the law of copyright in respect of journal articles describing work funded by say UK funding agences! - or is there already a US law in place which prohibits that? I'm only surprised that encouraging others to break the law isn't already illegal (even for Govt agencies): isn't that the law of incitement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incitement)? This forum in fact already has such a policy in place for all journal articles (i..e not just those funded by US federal agencies but by all funding agencies), i.e. we actively discourage postings which incite others to break the law by asking for copies of copyrighted published articles. Perhaps the next petition should seek to overturn this policy? This petition seems to be targeting the wrong law: if what you want is free flow of information then it's the copyright law that you need to petition to overturn, or you get around it by publishing in someplace that doesn't require transfer of copyright. Cheers -- Ian On 16 February 2012 09:35, Tim Gruene <t...@shelx.uni-ac.gwdg.de> wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Dear Raji, > > maybe you could increase the number of supporters if you included a link > to (a description of) the content of HR3699 - I will certainly not sign > something only summarised by a few polemic sentences ;-) > > Cheers, > Tim > > On 02/15/2012 11:53 PM, Raji Edayathumangalam wrote: >> If you agree, please signing the petition below. You need to register on >> the link below before you can sign this petition. Registration and signing >> the petition took about a minute or two. >> >> Cheers, >> Raji >> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> From: Seth Darst <da...@mail.rockefeller.edu> >> Date: Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 12:40 PM >> Subject: HR3699, Research Works Act >> To: >> >> >> Rep. Caroline Maloney has not backed off in her attempt to put forward the >> interests of Elsevier and other academic publishers. >> >> If you oppose this measure, please sign this petition on the official 'we >> the people' White House web site. It needs 23,000 signatures before >> February 22nd and only 1100 so far. Please forward far and wide. >> >> >> Oppose HR3699, the Research Works Act >> >> HR 3699, the Research Works Act will be detrimental to the free flow of >> scientific information that was created using Federal funds. It is an >> attempt to put federally funded scientific information behind pay-walls, >> and confer the ownership of the information to a private entity. This is an >> affront to open government and open access to information created using >> public funds. >> >> This link gets you to the petition: >> https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/oppose-hr3699-research-works-act/vKMhCX9k >> >> >> >> >> > > - -- > - -- > Dr Tim Gruene > Institut fuer anorganische Chemie > Tammannstr. 4 > D-37077 Goettingen > > GPG Key ID = A46BEE1A > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) > Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ > > iD8DBQFPPM3kUxlJ7aRr7hoRAsKYAKDIs/jZHPBIV4AB2qrpBdXrSOn+VwCePabR > Nm6+LK17jLJnPTqkjsQ4fV8= > =a27t > -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
