Re: SCIENCE TODAY?

On Tue, 02 Mar 1999, Joe Lane <joelane[_at_]nm.net> wrote:

>

You need to start with the statute: 17 USC 105:

   Copyright protection under this title is not available for any    work of the United States Government, but the United States    Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights    transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise.

This implies that if the work was created by the U.S. government, then it is not covered by copyright. If the CFR regulation was created by an employee of the govt., then no copyright.

If you were not an employee (or similar) of the government, then other rules may apply. In that case, assigning the writing of the regulation really doesn't create a copyright interest - rather, the author is the person writing it. Research is also for the most part irrelevant. This is somewhat akin to our recent discussion concerning academic publications where the cited authors often include advisors and the like who often are not considered legal (copyright) authors since they really didn't contribute any original expression to the paper.

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The preceding was not a legal opinion, and is not my employer's.
Original portions Copyright 1999 Bruce E. Hayden,all rights reserved
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Bruce E. Hayden                      bhayden[_at_]acm.org
Phoenix, Arizona                     bhayden[_at_]ieee.org
                                     bhayden[_at_]copatlaw.com