copyright question

["Shinjoung Yeo" <shyeo@library.ucsd.edu>]

Hi all,

My co-worker, a government document librarian at UCSD, had a question
regarding the copyright of California State documents and I wasn't able to
find the answer on this issue. Below is the question he has forwared to
me. Any information would be appreciated. Thank you.

ShinJoung Yeo

--------

I am a government information librarian at UC San Diego. I have a question
for you regarding the copyright of CA state documents. We just received an
item from the CA Contractors State License Board entitled, "CA Contractors
License Law and Reference Book 2004". The book comes with a CD-ROM that
has "single-user license" printed on it and a shrink-wrapped licensing
agreement/copyright by "Matthew Bender & Co., a member of the LexisNexis
Group". I'm assuming that Bender's copyright is for the use of the
software to view the document (called "Folio Views"). My question is:
Since CA docs are in the public domain, can others place copyright
restrictions on the material if commercial software is used to view the
material? Do I have a legal leg to stand on if I simply ignore the CD's
copyright and assume that the restrictions on CA government information
(in the public domain) trump the software's restrictions?

This is probably a low use item that we won't network to multiple
computers via the web so this question is simply academic for my
information. However, in the future, this issue may come up if we decide
to put a CD on our CD-ROM network. Any thoughts you may have would be
appreciated. Please contact me at jrjacobs@ucsd.edu

Thank you for any information.

James R. Jacobs
Government Information Librarian
Social Sciences and Humanities Library
UC San Diego

Shinjoung Yeo
Social Sciences and Humanities Library
UC San Diego
(858) 822-5917