NIH Public Access Mandate Passes Senate

["Joseph J. Esposito" <espositoj@gmail.com>]

I can't speak to the bill's expectations regarding a veto, but I 
am troubled that none of the questions that are at the center of 
this discussion (center as defined by yours truly) have come up 
anywhere that I have seen.  So, my list of questions:

1.  Do you believe an author should have the right to ownership 
of his or her own work?  That right would include the ability to 
charge for access if anyone is interested in participating in a 
market.  Or should an author (at least of scholarly materials) 
have no presumption that he or she owns his written work?

2.  If you are comfortable with #1 (that is, you support an 
author's choice to assert traditional copyright), do you believe 
an author should be able to transfer that right to another 
entity, whether a publisher or any other institution?  Does an 
author have the right to enter into a contract concerning his 
copyrights?

3.  Most academic authors do their work while being compensated 
by others--a university, for example, or a grant-giving body. 
Should that fact alone (being paid to write up research) be 
sufficient reason to assert that the copyrights belong to the 
funding body?  In effect, is an academic author's writing a work 
for hire under the copyright law?  (A corporate employee who 
writes materials or software or whatever does so as work for 
hire.)

4.  If you take the position in #3, should the work-for-hire 
status extend to other intellectual property created while in the 
employ of a university? Patents?  Textbooks?  If textbooks (which 
in some instances literally provide hundreds of thousands of 
dollars in royalties to authors who teach at universities) are to 
be covered by work-for-hire, how will this policy be introduced 
to faculty?  Also, how would you handle related activity such as 
consulting?  Is this all work for hire?

The principle that sits behind all these questions is that of 
authors' rights.  The open access movement is all about readers' 
rights, but should an author have the right to own the fruits of 
his own labor and the right to contract for the sale of that 
work?

Incidentally, while I personally lean toward points ##1 and 2, 
the case for #3 is not unreasonable.  I simply can't square it 
with #4.  Someone else may have the privilege of telling the 
faculty of the Stanford Business School that they have to turn 
over their consulting income (including stock options) to the 
university.

Best,

Joe Esposito

----- Original Message -----
From: "Rick Anderson" <rick.anderson@utah.edu>
To: <liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2007 6:48 PM
Subject: RE: NIH Public Access Mandate Passes Senate

> This is certainly good news and I don't want to throw a wet 
> blanket on things -- but how likely is it that President Bush 
> would sign this bill into law, assuming it gets through both 
> houses with the requirement language intact?
>
> ---
> Rick Anderson
> Assoc. Dir. for Scholarly Resources & Collections
> Marriott Library
> University of Utah
> rick.anderson@utah.edu