In a major victory for open government and fundamental due process, the Supreme Court ruled today that the annotations in a state’s official legal code—summaries of court decisions and other sources that explain the state’s laws—cannot be copyrighted. That is,… Read More ›
Tag Archive for ‘Open Access’
Open Innovation in Medical Technology Will Save Lives
Experts from the world’s top engineering programs have come together to share knowledge about medical technology, hoping to make life-saving treatments more widely available. Importantly, they’re ensuring that patents, copyrights, and other legal restrictions don’t get between that knowledge and… Read More ›
Lengthening Patent Terms by 10 Years is Exactly the Wrong Response to COVID-19
Governments around the world are taking steps to make sure that private corporations don’t use the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to make unjustified monopoly profits. They’re doing that by ensuring that governments can override patents and issue compulsory licenses… Read More ›
Embracing Open Science in a Medical Crisis
Responding to the threat of COVID-19, science advisers from twelve countries have signed on to an open letter urging scientific publishers to make all COVID-19 research freely available to the public through PubMed Central or the World Health Organization’s COVID… Read More ›
Coalition Asks California's Governor Newsom to Support Fiber Broadband for All
The Electronic Frontier Foundation recently joined several California-based ISPs, tech companies, non-profits, and local governments to commend Governor Newsom for adopting a “Broadband for All” vision. But simply saying “broadband” without a clear eye towards the future risks having government… Read More ›
Don’t Let Science Publisher Elsevier Hold Knowledge for Ransom
It’s Open Access Week and we’re joining SPARC and dozens of other organizations this week to discuss the importance of open access to scientific research publications. An academic publisher should widely disseminate the knowledge produced by scholars, not hold it… Read More ›
Patents Are About Sharing Information with the Public. Don’t Shroud Them in Secrecy.
Patents give their owners the power to stop people (and companies) from doing whatever the patent claims as an “invention” for twenty years. But that power doesn’t come for free: it’s a trade. In exchange for the right to sue… Read More ›
California Can Lead the Way in Open Access
There’s a bill in the California legislature that would be a huge win for open access to scientific research. The California Assembly recently passed A.B. 2192 unanimously. We hope to see it pass the Senate soon, and for other states… Read More ›
The Fate of Text and Data Mining in the European Copyright Overhaul
The current European Digital Single Market copyright negotiations involve more than just the terrible upload filter and link tax proposals that have caused so much concern—and not all of the other provisions under negotiation are harmful. We haven’t said much about the text… Read More ›
Congress Will Finally Make Its Research Reports Public
The recent omnibus bill passed by Congress contains a nugget of good news for those interested in access to publicly funded research. Open access activists have long been asking for reports by the Congressional Research Service, or CRS, to be… Read More ›