OA Fanatics vs. Our Rights
Congress is pushing back on the Nelson Memo again, and the fanaticism of the OA movement is on full display
Do fanatics recognize they are fanatics? Or is fanaticism by definition blind?
This question has come to mind as I’ve thought about things going on in the US currently. Growing up, the saying “private property is nine-tenths of the law” was used as a shorthand in civics lessons to remind us that the US Constitution and the laws emanating from it protected our private property rights to a high degree, with most court rulings coming down on the side of private property as a result.
These issues are back in the news as both houses of Congress are expressing concerns about the idea of the concept of a “federal purpose” license being used to justify policies that would force authors and publishers — private entities, from the government’s perspective — to surrender copyright and other licensing options simply because research being reported received a portion of funding from a US government agency.
This recent reporting from the American Institute of Physics is useful but relatively superficial, so let’s dig a little deeper, with a quick recap of where we are when it comes to the “federal purpose” concept being used to require authors and publishers to give up their private property: