The president should direct agencies to minimize the use of copyright claims on government-sponsored materials and include a statement on websites establishing that in the absence of expressed copyright agency-produced materials are copyright free.
The government should minimize the copyright claims it allows for materials produced under contract with federal agencies. Each agency should include on its website a clear statement that in the absence of a clear copyright claim, all materials produced and available from the agency should be considered copyright free.
- From the 21st Century RTK Agenda
Comments (7)
Government documents must be public domain. Taxpayers have already paid for this devleopment through contract dollars. Besides, we should be producing reports using other eaisly accessible media and cut down on the reams of paper
The government could shift and begin using Creative commons Copyright (www.creativecommons.org) - easy to do. If CDC can go open source with their public health data, surely the rest of the government could do likewise?
Note that this proposal is a simple extension of already-existing law. 17 USC 105 and 17 USC 101 prevents the U.S. government from claiming U.S. copyright on a work “prepared by an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties”. However, as contractor-developed works have increased, this protection has become less helpful. If "we the people" paid for it, "we the people" should get it.
But if the Government is to reply upon commercial enterprise, membership paying organizations, and expert content input in the conduct of all of it's business, it MUST afford some form of Copyright Protection.
©2009 johnruuu All Rights Reserved!
Copyright Exclusion for Federal Government Works
You need to take a close look at the law. Title 17 USC §105 consists of a total of 37 words in one sentence with two clauses.
The first clause states: “Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government.” The key to understanding the scope and limits of this provision is found near the end of 17 USC § 101 Definitions which narrows government works to those “prepared BY an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person’s official duties.” In other words, only government works created by federal government employees on the job are not subject to copyright protection. Copyright legislative history shows that Congress decided that contractors and grantees were not employees for the purposes of copyright. Although works commissioned by the U.S. government may be freely available and have generous terms and conditions of use, the works are not “works of the U.S. Government” or automatically in the public domain.
The misconception that all federal government publications are not copyrighted is rooted in the 1909 Copyright Act which provided: “No copyright shall subsist in any publication of the U.S. Government or any reprint in whole or in part thereof.” The 1976 revision of the 1909 law substituted the word “work” for “publication” and added the definition to further clarify the shift of the federal government from printer to author.
The tendency to use the terms “government works,” “government information,” and “government publications” interchangeably contributes to misperceptions. The Office of Management and Budget Circular OMB-A 130 established the policy for the Management of Federal Government Information Resources. The A-130 circular defines “government information” as “Information created, collected, processed, disseminated, or disposed of BY or FOR the Federal Government.” The “BY” or “FOR” is significant.
Even the Federal Government may own and assert copyright. While the first clause of 17 USC § 105 prohibits government copyright ownership in works by the government, the second allows government copyright ownership in the works of others. Most people put a mental period after the first clause, reinforcing the erroneous belief that the U.S. government cannot own copyrights. However, the second clause clearly states: “[but] the government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise.”
Examples of these works are listed in FAR 27.405-1 [http://www.arnet.gov/far/current/html/Subpart%2027_4.html#wp1044946] and include (but are not limited to) audiovisual works; motion picture scripts; musical compositions; sound tracks; translations; adaptations; histories of agencies, departments, services, or units; surveys of government establishments; and instruction, guidance, or training materials for government officers and employees in the performance of their official duties.
We need to follow the concept in private enterprise that if something is produced as "work product" for pay (salary or contract / grant), it is owned by those who paid. In this case it would be, oh, We the People. If government dollars paid for it, it belongs to the public.
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vr,
Stephen Buckley
http://www.UStransparency.com
Under U.S. Copyright Law, copyright automatically applies to all original creative works fixed in a discernable format. Use of a copyright notice and formal registration with the Copyright Office is voluntary and not required. The absence of a notice does not mean a work is not copyrighted. It means just the opposite and places the burden on users who must assume a work is copyrighted until they prove otherwise. A blanket statement of copyright on a government website does not carry forward when the information is picked up and carried downstream. That's why all "government works" should have a notice at least at the document-level to clearly and unambiguiously identify them as such and not subject to copyright protection.