Intellectual Property Law

MAPLight.org Illuminates Anti-Open Access Bill Money Trail

By richard

Change Congress' Lawrence Lessig points to a report from campaign contribution researchers MAPLight.org about H.R. 801, the terrible bill that would cut the public's open access to taxpayer-funded medical research. Lessig writes:
[T]he co-sponsors of this bill who sit on the Judiciary Committee received on average two-times the amount of money from publishing interests as those who haven't co-sponsored the bill.

The publishers want the bill because it would allow them to monopolize the publishing of scientific research, essentially forcing the public to pay twice -- once as taxpayers and again for access to the publishers' journals -- and the MAPLight.org report demonstrates part of why a bill so harmful to the public is seeing the light of day.

Full post as published by Electronic Freedom Foundation - Deep Links on March 03, 2009 (boomark / email).