I thought that the legal battles surrounding the Watergate tapes and
transcripts established once and for all that correspondence and other
documents from government officials and employees in their official
capacities was government property, not the individual employee's
property.
Martha Luehrmann
MRLuehrmann[_at_]LBL.gov
> On 9/5/96, Alan D. Sugarman <sugarman[_at_]hyperlaw.com> wrote:
> >
> > Comment letters to DOJ and links to comment letters concerning the
> > proposed consent decree with WEST-THOMSON have been placed on
> > HyperLaw's web site.
> >
> > Included are comments from Lexis-Nexis, Matthew Bender, HyperLaw,
> > AALL, and CD-LAW, Inc. Additional documents will be placed on the
> > site later.
> >
> > If you have access to Counsel Connect, you will find John Morris's
> > article on the DOJ-WEST-THOMSON merger approval negotiations by John
> > Morris that appeared in this month's issue of the American Lawyer.
>
> Is the copyright to correspondence to the government or to government
> officials in their official capacity (such as these) still retained by
> the writer? Do the writers have to consent to having their letters
> placed <online>? Do they somehow become public domain because they are
> to the U.S. government? I assume not, but am curious about others'
> thoughts.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Melissa Smith Levine
> Legal Advisor, National Digital Library Project
> Library of Congress
> Washington, D.C. 20540-1300
> ph. 202-707-1783
> fax 202-707-0815
> mele[_at_]loc.gov
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Received on Mon Sep 09 1996 - 23:43:38 GMT