It looks like there's a new copyright battle brewing after U.S. Senators John Cornyn (R.-Tex.) and Joe Lieberman, (I.-Conn.) re-introduced the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA; S. 1373), a bill that would require every federal department and agency with an annual extramural research budget of $100 million or more to make their research available to the public within six months of publication. The bill sets up a showdown—or perhaps a stalemate—with Congressman John Conyers (D.-Mich.), who in February introduced the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act (H.R. 801), an opposing bill supported by publishers that would prohibit the federal government from requiring copyright transfer in connection with federal funding.
This is the second time around for both bills. The publisher-supported H.R. 801 was first introduced in September 2008 in response to implementation of the National Institutes of Health's open access mandate which requires NIH grantees to make their resulting research publicly available within a year. Publishers have bitterly opposed the NIH mandate on both procedural grounds and on principle. Publishers claim the NIH mandate takes unfair advantage of publishers' efforts, such as editing and peer review, and diminishes copyright.
First introduced in 2006, FRPAA represents an even broader, more aggressive mandate to offer public access to taxpayer-funded research across all agencies. Although the initial bill went nowhere legislatively, supporters say it generated critical support for open access policies, including the NIH's. The FRPAA would apply to all unclassified research funded by agencies ranging from the Departments of Defense to NASA.
Reintroducing FRPAA in 2009 would seem to be a smart political play for open access advocates—going from defense, against H.R. 801, to offense with the NIH mandate and FRPAA. Advocates stressed, however, that they believe FRPAA can pass. Peter Suber, an expert in open access issues, told PW this is partly because the NIH mandate has been successful so far. Second, he noted, when FRPAA first went to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs in 2006, Lieberman was the committee's ranking member—he now chairs the committee. Finally, the bill's aim syncs with President Obama's pledge to open up government. “Cornyn and Lieberman are not interested in being a symbolic foil to Conyers,” Suber noted. “They want public access to publicly funded research, and they think this is the time to try again.”
