The wording of my recent commentary on the dispute between Rep. Conyers and Larry Lessig over the NIH policy on publishing research paid for with public funds regrettably does not make very clear what current law actually requires. 

The NIH policy does not require researchers to publish articles solely in Open Access journals; it only requires that all articles that result from research funded with public money be deposited in a publicly accessible database like Pubmed Central within a certain period of time after being published elsewhere. The articles can still be published in a subscription-only journal initially. We regret not making that clear in the original article.