Re: copyright of briefs

I wonder if there is any distinction between a brief and say a complaint -- which is also the work product of a lawyer. Hayden is suggesting that a brief filed in a federal court may be copyrighted. I have a hard time distinguishing between a complaint and brief -- complaint's can be equally creative.

And then what about every other document filed in a federal court.

Apparently, West and Lexis both have contracts with the federal courts to test out electronic filing programs -- of course one might suspect that each desires to include the filed information (including briefs) on Westlaw and Lexis -- for a fee. Does the copyrightability of briefs throw a clinker in these plans.

In addition, three years ago, the US Supreme Court had a project known as Mercury -- involving the scanning in of briefs and disseminating the TIFF files to the publishers who receive slip opinions via the Hermes system. Implicit was that the publishers would publish the briefs.

Finally, who actually owns the copyright on briefs, if there is one -- the lawyer or the client? Is this not a work for hire??

Alan

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:: Alan D. Sugarman       Federal Appeals on Disc tm CD-ROM  ::

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