by Traverse Legal, reviewed by Enrico Schaefer - April 17, 2008 - Uncategorized
Imagine a world where state laws could not be reproduced on-line, where discussion of such laws raised possible copyright issues and where license fees had to be paid to re-publish statutes…
Info/Law » Can States Copyright Their Statutes?
Via Boing Boing comes a story about the State of Oregon asserting copyright over its official codification of state laws, the Oregon Revised Statutes. The state’s Office of Legislative Counsel has been sending out C&Ds to groups like Justia and public.resource.org, demanding that they take down their copies of the state laws. The groups are responding with letters of their own arguing that the statutes are in the public domain as a matter of federal copyright law and that Oregon state law allows them to be freely reproduced. My analysis after the break.
Although Section 105 of the Copyright Act places the works of federal government employees (so, federal statutes, federal judicial opinions, and the like) in the public domain, Section 105 doesn’t apply to state laws. Does that mean state laws are copyrightable? Although the statute is silent, the courts have always said: no, they aren’t. In Nash v. Lathrop, 6 N.E. 559, 560 (Mass. 1886), the court rested this conclusion on the unfairness of limiting public’s access to the rules that governed its conduct:
Technorati Tags: copyright, oregon, Boing Boing
As a founding partner of Traverse Legal, PLC, he has more than thirty years of experience as an attorney for both established companies and emerging start-ups. His extensive experience includes navigating technology law matters and complex litigation throughout the United States.
This page has been written, edited, and reviewed by a team of legal writers following our comprehensive editorial guidelines. This page was approved by attorney Enrico Schaefer, who has more than 20 years of legal experience as a practicing Business, IP, and Technology Law litigation attorney.
