I urge you to oppose HR 801, the misleadingly titled Fair Copyright in Research
Works Act.  This unfortunate bill takes aim at the recently introduced practice
of National Institutes of Health (NIH) that requires that the full texts of
scientific articles reporting NIH-funded studies enter into the public domain
within one year of their initial publication.  This current practice is not at
all unfair, and should not be modified.

On the contrary, what was unfair was a publishing system rigged by a trust
consisting of a fairly small field of large scientific publishing houses
(Elsevier, Wiley, Springer, Kluwer, Blackwell, and others), in which we
scientists were forced to sign over exclusive rights to our own writings as a
condition of publication in any peer-reviewed scientific journal, and in which
members of the public were forced to pay twice to gain access to research: once
as taxpayers supporting NIH and other publicly funded research projects, and a
second time as purchasers of journal articles.

HR 801 is an anti-populist bill that would restrict the dissemination of
scientific knowledge both to the public and within the scientific community,
and which would prop up a cabal of monopolistic publishing conglomerates that
have seen their day.  I hope that you'll do all that you can to stop it.