West's Trittipo lobbies for Paperwork Reduction Act -copyright (fwd)

CROSS-POSTED FROM LAW-LIB TO
     cni-copryight, tap-info, cyberia-l, and tap-juris

NOTE: THIS MESSAGE CONCERNS A BILL INTRODUCED MONDAY EVENING AND WHICH HAS ALREADY BEEN VOTED OUT OF COMMITTEE AND IS ON A FAST TRACK. THE BILL WAS INTRODUCED FOR WEST PUBLISHING CO. IT IS A BACK DOOR AMENDMENT TO THE COPRYIGHT ACT, AMONG OTHER THINGS. SEE tap-info and la-lib for more information.         

RE: Michael Trittipo messages and West lobbying.

I am sure that not everyone is aware that Mr. Trittipo's law firm represents West Publishing Company, and, indeed Vance Opperman, President of West was the name partner of the firm, which in many ways acts as in-house counsel for West.

In addition, the firm maintains a fully staffed lobbying office in Washington DC headed by Gerry Sikorski, former Congressman from Minnesota.

Based upon how things are done, it would be a fair assumption that the language was drafted by Schatz Paquin et al, and, perhaps even Mr. Trittipo worked on the language since the firm is not all that large.

Perhaps that might explain to John Lederer why Mr. Trittipo had the text of the bill, and Mr. Lederer's Congressional Representative had trouble gaining access. All Mr. Trittipo had to do was call it up on his firm's word-processing system

This is not to say that Mr. Trittipo is not entitled to his views and that his views are in any way affected by this relationship. But, I would think it appropriate that in his message, Mr. Trittipo state in the signature that his firm is THE lobbyist and counsel for West Publishing Company.

As to a substantive comment, West is clearly attempting to rewrite the copyright laws and to substitute "added value" for "originality" as that term is used in copyright law. Moreover, West is quite clearly trying to overrule 100 years of highly developed law on derivative copyrights and to establish legislative protection for its citation. The bill establishes the government as having substandard rights under the copyright law. What is insidious is that if a private publisher were to use West so-called "value-added" that the publisher had an absolute right to use under the copyright laws, then that publisher could not sell its products to the government.

In other words, under this law HyperLaw would be unable to sell to the government copies of its CD-ROM of federal appellate opinions because that CD-ROM includes the first page citation to West's Federal Reporter which is I assume West would argue is a "method used by [West] to identify such resulting ... information product."

This is so because the bill states that the "Federal Government shall not have any right to obtain, collect, acquire, disseminate, use" the resulting data or information product. Thus, if the Federal Government "obtained" a HyperLaw CD-ROM which contained a "method" (i.e., citation), then the Government could not purchase the CD-ROM except under terms expressly agreed to by West, Real sneaky. And, of course, under this provision, someone could not obtain from West books other "added value" information not protected by the copyright laws and then use that information in a product to be sold to the government. And, the government is not an insignificant market.

A little interesting history is that in 1974-76, the US Air Force was keying in West opinions for its FLITE database. Despite the fact that the text of the opinions was public domain and the changes added by West were not protectable under the copyright law, the Air Force "licensed" the non-proprietary text from West. Not only did that data become the basis for the Justice Department's Juris database, but, that data became the basis for Westlaw, for the Air Force turned over the keyed in data to West. So, as we move forward 20 years, TAP and Tax Analysts go after the Juris database, and the hole in the West position became clear, for, all along, nothing prohibited the government under the copyright laws from keying in the West text from West books. So, West has come into Congress asking for the "West Copyright Relief Act", and tries to sneak it through as part of the Contract. Funny, I did not see a mention of this in the Contract.

What is really egregious is that this bill is without question a bill that amends the copyright act and should be so treated.

In 1992, West argued against HR 4426, the Barney Frank bill to amend the copyright law as to the copyrightability of citations, on the grounds that these copyright issues should be determined by the courts. Now that West is defending itself against litigation in D.C. and N.Y., it is now retreating to Congress for protection.

Alan Sugarman
HyperLaw, Inc. (In the spirit of disclosure: a litigant against West) sugarman[_at_]panix.com
212-787-2812

On Wed, 8 Feb 1995, Michael Trittipo wrote:
>
> Thanks to Mr. Sprehe for being the first to post the _actual_language_ of
> the section as to which so many assertions have been made. That
> actual language, rather than characterizations of it, follows here again::
>
> "(f) Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter or any other
> law--
> (1) any public information that an agency discloses, disseminates, or
> makes available to the public may be used by any person for profit or
> nonprofit activities; and
> (2) if any person adds value to the public information, the Federal
> Government shall not have any right to obtain, collect, acquire,
> disseminate, use, or convert --
> (A) the resulting data, database, or other information product, or
> (B) any method used by the person to identify such resulting
> data, database, or information product,
> except under terms that are expressly agreed to by such person."
>
> It's been asserted that this language would remove from the public
> domain any public information, as soon as anyone obtained a copy of it
> and "added value" to that copy.
>
> The actual language doesn't support this assertion. To the contrary,
> subpart (1) clearly says that _anyone_ may obtain public information
> from the government and may use it in any way they want. That's rather
> far from "maintain[ing a] grip on the market for legal information" in just
> one person. Far from helping just one person, this language ensures
> that everyone can obtain the original public records.
>
> Subpart (2) does nothing to change this result. As can be seen, subpart
> (2) puts _no_ restrictions on the ability or right of the government to
> turn over the same _original_ records to as many different persons as ask
> for them, or to keep or use its own original records in any way it may
> want to. Those public domain records would remain public domain, for
> anyone to get who wanted to. The accusation that the bill would
> somehow take the _original_ public records out of the public domain or
> the reach of other laws simply has no basis in the proposed language.
>
> This point bears emphasis: subpart B very clearly talks only about the
> "resulting" product, not about the original, unmodified records, which
> subpart A very clearly says anyone -- not just the first comer -- can
> obtain and use. The government just can't take back "the _resulting_
> product," i.e., the _new_ product created by the private person who
> added value to the original records. The government can still do anything
> it wants to do with its original public information, and indeed _must_
> still give its original public information to anyone else who wants it.
>
> Michael Trittipo
> SPGL&H
Received on Thu Feb 09 1995 - 16:50:37 GMT