Re: copyright infringement by public officials and entities

On Tue, Apr 04, 2000, Marty Hayes <9ball[_at_]hostsite.net> wrote:
>
> On Sun, 2 Apr 2000, Greg Erkins <gerkins[_at_]gci.net> wrote:
> >
> > Does anyone know of any cases with respect to the liability of a
> > 1) state, 2) a municipality, 3) a police department, and 4) an
> > individual police officer for copyright infringement?
>
> To that question, yes, state and municipalities can be held liable
> for infringement. There was an instance about 2-3 years ago where
> the City of Philadelphia settled for a sum of approximately $121,000
> for a claim of infringement from the SPA (Software Publishers
> Association, which is now the SIIA) for unlicensed software installed
> on municipal computers.
>
> I would tend to doubt, however, that police confiscation of a computer
> could be deemed copyright infringement, if that's what you're
> suggesting. That would be akin to suggesting that police are guilty
> of auto theft when they impound a car.

See more information in response to Tyler Ochoa response.

In this case, it may be, using your analogy, that the police impounded the car, disregarded the title (computer programmer and partner copyrighted the program circa 1999 and it was filed, acknowledged and returned from the US Copyright Office) and gave the car to the people who did not own it.

Greg Erkins
<gerkins[_at_]gci.net> Received on Thu Apr 06 2000 - 06:39:39 GMT