The new mandate that requires NIH-funded researchers to make their published papers publicly available threatens publisher and author interests, according to a linkurl:statement;http://www.pspcentral.org/publications/AAP_press_release_NIH_mandatory_policy.pdf released yesterday (January 3) by the Association of American Publishers (AAP). The mandate was signed into law by the president on December 26 as part of the 2008 appropriations bill, which went through many linkurl:iterations;http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/53858/ before its final passage. By law, the NIH must now require that its funded researchers submit a copy of any published work into PubMed Central within one year of publication, when allowed by copyright laws. The new mandate "undermines publishers' ability to exercise their copyrights in the published articles, which is the means by which they support their investments in such value-adding operations," Allan Adler, vice president of legal and government affairs of the AAP, said in the statement. Adler continued that making content of for-profit journals freely available threatens their profitability...
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