feb12b.indd


February 2012  105 C&RL News

Corey Williams is assistant director, ALA Office of 
Government Relations, e-mail: cwilliams@alawash.org

W a s h i n g t o n  H o t l i n eCorey Williams

Legislation to start 2012
The New Year has brought with it a flurry 
of legislative activity on two key issues of 
interest to the ACRL community—copyright 
and open access.

PIPA, SOPA, and the OPEN Act 
This trio of antipiracy, online infringing, 
copyright-related bills has picked up steam 
in Congress heading into 2012. The latest 
newcomer is the Online Protection and En-
forcement of Digital Trade Act or OPEN Act 
(S. 2029). Introduced December 17, 2011, by 
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), along with Sena-
tors Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Maria Cantwell 
(D-WA), the OPEN Act is considered an 
alternative to existing anti-piracy bills—the 
Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic 
Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property 
Act of 2011 or PIPA (S. 968), and the Stop 
Online Piracy Act or SOPA (H.R. 3261). 

All three bills share the common charac-
teristic that they take aim at any Web site 
beyond U.S. borders that distribute counter-
feit or copyright infringing products. Unlike 
PIPA or SOPA, the OPEN Act focuses solely 
on curbing online infringement by cutting 
off Web sites’ payment processing and ad 
networks. 

In contrast, PIPA and SOPA go further 
in that they also incentivize Internet com-
panies to cut off access to Web sites. The 
tactics the latter two bills employ have a 
potential chilling effect on First Amend-
ment free speech rights and intellectual 
freedom, as well as weaken cyber secu-
rity, and threaten privacy. A “PIPA, SOPA 
and OPEN Act Quick Reference Guide,” 
prepared by the ALA Washington Office, 
compares the three bills as of January 10, 
2012, and is available at www.districtdis-

patch.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01 
/ALA_pipasopaopen_ref_guide.pdf.

Currently, the bills are in the midst of the 
legislative process and slated for additional 
congressional action. An updated status of 
these bills is available at ala.org/ala/issue-
sadvocacy/copyright/copyrightlegislation/
index.cfm. ALA will continue to voice strong 
opposition to PIPA and SOPA, while further 
analysis of the OPEN Act is underway.

Federal Research Works Act
In December 2011, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) 
introduced the Research Works Act (H.R. 
3699). Cosponsored by Rep. Carolyn Malo-
ney (D-NY), the bill would effectively turn 
back the clock on the National Institutes 
of Health (NIH) Public Access policy put 
into place in 2008. The bill was referred 
to the U.S. House Committee on Oversight 
and Government Reform, of which Issa is 
chairman.

If you recall, the Federal Research Public 
Access Act (FRPAA), (H.R. 5037), introduced 
in April 2010 in the 111th Congress, was 
modeled after the NIH Public Access policy. 
ALA strongly supported FRPAA as it aimed 
to ensure free, timely, online access to the 
published results of federally funded (i.e., 
tax-payer funded) research by 11 U.S. federal 
agencies and departments. The bipartisan- 
supported bill mirrored a Senate version of 
FRPAA (S. 1373), and a brief history of these 
bills is available at ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy 
/access/index.cfm. 

ALA has been a long-time, ardent sup-
porter of increasing access to information 
of all types, including federally funded re-
search. This latest bill, the Research Works 
Act, would act in direct contradiction to such 
efforts. Therefore, ALA vehemently opposes 
the bill. ALA will be keeping close tabs on the 
Research Works Act and will track whether 
there is even a hint at it gaining traction.