The Research Works Act: a comment

Abstract

It’s been a tale of two ‘opens’; recent events in US political life suggest a reconciliation with the concept of open marriage but a relationship with open access to scientific research that may be headed for splitsville. In a rare feat of bipartisanship during a Congress famed for partisan pettiness, the Research Works Act (RWA) has received cross-party sponsorship in the House and is now being heard in Committee. The Act, in its own words, seeks to prevent Federal agencies from requiring that authors ‘assent to network dissemination of a privatesector research work’. Translation? It will be illegal for Federally funded research grants to have open access strings attached. This includes a bar on policies insisting on deposition in public repositories; in fact, it will be illegal to ‘cause’, ‘permit’ or ‘authorize’ such a deposition. RWA has not attracted the same volume of headlines as the equally controversial SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), which was another recent bill pertaining to internet freedoms. But although the opponents of RWA cannot rival the political and global reach of the likes of Google and Wikipedia, a spirited, academia-led campaign against RWA is underway on the blogosphere and Twitter. As with many grassroots protests in the social media era, the RWA rebutters have mixed a sense of genuine outrage with mischievous and irreverent humor.