Rep.Conyers just doesn't get it, does he?

You may remember when I wrote this recently (check out the useful links within):

The Conyers bill (a.k.a. Fair Copyright in Research Works Act, HR 801), is back. Despite all the debunking it got last time around, and despite the country having more important problems to deal with right now, this regressive bill, completely unchanged word-for-word, is apparently back again. It is the attempt by TA publishers, through lies and distortions, to overturn the NIH open access policy. Here are some reactions - perhaps Rep.Conyers and colleagues should get an earful from us....

Then, Lawrence Lessig and Michael Eisen directly challenged Rep.Conyers on Huffington Post, not once, but twice:

Is John Conyers Shilling for Special Interests?:

You may have heard of Big Oil, but have you heard of "Big Paper"? We know, it sounds absurd, but check this out.

Right now, there's a proposal in Congress to forbid the government from requiring scientists who receive taxpayer funds for medical research to publish their findings openly on the Internet.

This ban on "open access publishing" (which is currently required) would result in a lot of government-funded research being published exclusively in for-profit journals -- inaccessible to the general public.

John Conyers, It's Time to Speak Up:

Conyers' bill opposing "open access" is the darling of the publishing industry because it would force the public to buy for-profit journals to get information that would otherwise be online for free. A new report by transparency group MAPLight.org shows that sponsors of this bill--led by Conyers--received twice as much money from the publishing industry as those on the relevant committee who are not sponsors.

And, lo and behold, Conyers responded - the first half is "I am a good guy so you should trust me" and the second half is "this is what Elsevier PR guys told me to write, so here it is". Of course, as Conyers is a hero to many on the Left, some of the HuffPo commenters had a knee-jerk response to support him instead of trying to understand that, in this case at least, he is dead wrong:

A Reply to Larry Lessig:

The policy Professor Lessig supports, they argue, would limit publishers' ability to charge for subscriptions since the same articles will soon be publicly available for free. If journals begin closing their doors or curtailing peer review, or foist peer review costs on academic authors (who are already pay from their limited budgets printing costs in some cases), the ultimate harm will be to open inquiry and scientific progress may be severe. And the journals most likely to be affected may be non-profit, scientific society based journals. Once again, a policy change slipped through the appropriations process in the dark of night may enhance open access to information, but it may have unintended consequences that are severe. This only emphasizes the need for proper consideration of these issues in open session.

Needless to say, although that was posted on Friday night (why, just like PRISM was posted on a Friday night), several people already responded:

Ed Brayton: Is Conyers Shilling for Scientific Publishers?:

If the research is funded with taxpayer money, why should taxpayers have to pay for journal access in order to see the results? Good question. Lessig and Eisen point to this report by MAPLight, an organization that highlights the influence of money in Congress, that suggests that Conyers is doing the bidding of publishers in order to preserve their profits. The report shows that those members of the House Judiciary Committee who are co-sponsoring the bill, including Conyers, received twice as much in donations from the publishing industry than those on the committee who are not sponsoring the bill.

Peter Suber: Rep. Conyers defends his bill:

Rep. Conyers insists that the House Judiciary Committee should have been consulted on the original proposal for an open-access policy at the NIH. However, William Patry, former copyright counsel to the House Judiciary Committee (and now chief copyright counsel at Google), believes that "the claim that the NIH policy raises copyright issues is absurd," and that the Judiciary Committee did not need to be in the loop. I understand that the House Rules Committee came to a similar decision when formally asked.

Clearly Rep. Conyers disagrees with these views. But they should suffice to show that bypassing the Judiciary Committee was not itself a corrupt maneuver.

Stevan Harnad: Rep. John Conyers Explains his Bill H.R. 801 in the Huffington Post:

Congressman John Conyers (D. Mich) is probably sincere when he says that his motivation for his Bill is not to reward contributions from the publishers' anti-OA lobby: He pretty much says up front that his motivation is jurisdictional.

Here are the (familiar, and oft-rebutted) arguments Rep Conyers refloats, but I think he is raising them less out of conviction that they are right than as a counterweight against the jurisdictional outcome he contests because it is his committee that he feels ought to have decided the outcome of the NIH Public Access Bill. (By the way, the original Bill was anything but secret as it made its way through the House Appropriations Committee, then the House, then the Senate, as Peter Suber's many OA News postings archived along the way will attest.)

Michael Eisen: John Conyers Tries [and Fails] to Explain His Position:

The first several paragraphs of Conyers' letter contain an outline of his record as a progressive politician. Representative Conyers is a smart man who has worked hard defending the public's interest on a large number of issues. But no record, no matter how distinguished, can provide an excuse for introducing an atrocious piece of legislation that sacrifices the public interest to those of a select group of publishing companies who just happen - coincidentally I'm sure - to contribute to Representative Conyers and the other backers of the bill.

Despite his protestations, Conyers response to our letter - like the bill itself - is taken straight from the playbook of the publishers who oppose the NIH public access policy, and only cements my opinion that he is doing this at their behest without taking the time to research or understand the issue. Although he says at several times he is trying to get to the bottom of a complex issue, he ignored evidence presented to his committee during hearings last year and has shown no interest in learning about how scientific publishing actually works.

I hope other bloggers pick up on this and send their readers to the phones of Conyers and others on the committee - they have to listen to their constituents, especially when said constituents prevent them from doing any other work by clogging their phones, faxes and e-mails for days on end....