Re: Copyright of Government Sponsored Work

On Sat, 28 Aug 1999, Steven D. Jamar <sjamar[_at_]law.howard.edu> wrote:
>
> I guess I don't understand the theory under which a foreign
> government's copyrighted laws and cases are not protected under
> U.S. copyright law. Just because the U.S. chooses not to copyright
> its laws and reported decisions does not mean they would not be
> copyrightable if the US chose to assert a copyright in them.
>
> [snip]
>
> So, I can't think of any reason that a foreign state's copyright in a
> foreign statute or case would not be entitled to be protected in the
> U.S. U.S. doctrine of fair use may give that statute or case thin
> protection -- perhaps any use short of republishing books of statutes,
> etc., would be fair use -- but I can't think of why not treat a foreign
> state as a foreign national -- indeed, principles of international law
> would give the foreign state more protection, not less, than a foreign
> national. There is no law, international or domestic, and no treaty
> that I am aware of that allows the U.S. to dictate what another state
> may consider copyrightable.

According to Terry Carroll's FAQ on copyright at ftp://ftp.aimnet.com/pub/users/carroll/law/copyright/faq/part3,

     The Compendium of Copyright Office Practices (Compendium II)
     section 206.01 states, "Edicts of government, such as judicial
     opinions, administrative rulings, legislative enactments,
     public ordinances, and similar official legal documents are
     not copyrightable for reasons of public policy.  This applies
     to such works whether they are Federal, State, or local as
     well as to those of foreign governments."

Copyright Office's policy itself has no teeth but it strongly suggests that the edicts of any nature should not be given the copyright.

We had some discussion on this subject before and there was no consensus on the copyrightability or uncopyrightability of edicts.

(Personally, I believe that the edicts should not be given any copyright. They are supposed to be copied freely so that the people can learn how to abide by the edicts, tell others of the edicts, change edicts if they do not like them, add edicts to their collections, learn from the edicts to govern themselves better, and argue on the edicts. Giving copyright to edicts is not going to encourage any of these activities but to restrict many of these activities.)

Joseph Pietro Riolo
<riolo[_at_]voicenet.com> Received on Mon Aug 30 1999 - 22:53:20 GMT