Re: copyright question

[jcg <jean.claude.guedon@umontreal.ca>]

Lawrence Lessig's recent book, _Free Culture_, may have the perfect answer
for the question below (pp. 280-1):

""Lexis and Westlaw have had electronic versions of case reports available
to subscribers to their service. Although a Supreme Court opinion is not
copyrighted, and anyone is free to go to the library and read it, Lexis
and Westlaw are also free to charge users for the privilege of gaining
access to the Supreme Court opinion through their respective services."

In a similar way, JSTOR is locking up electronically a number of articles
that are now in the public domain in paper format.

Alas and alack...

Jean-Claude Gu�don

On Wed May 5 2004 07:13 pm, Shinjoung Yeo wrote:
> 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