Re: copyright of briefs

On Fri, 11 Oct 1996, Dennis Austin <daustin[_at_]law-lib.state.wi.us> wrote:
>
> A recent discussion on lawlib indicated that Bancroft-Whitney, a
> publisher of legal materials, decided to back out of a contract
> with the California Administrative Office of the Courts to put
> briefs filed by attorneys up on CD-ROM, stating that there was a
> copyright problem. It seems that the company believes that the
> individual lawyers who write the briefs have copyrights in them.
> This seems strange since the US Supreme Court briefs are routinely
> put online and available in microformats. Do briefs fall into the
> materials that are protected by copyright?

There was a related discussion on this list not too long ago about copyrights in pleadings, interrogatories and the like. In most states (all ?) briefs are public documents and may be freely copied by the public. So, it seems that there is an argument they are public domain.

Harold Federow
<hfederow[_at_]u.washington.edu> Received on Mon Oct 14 1996 - 23:34:08 GMT