If I may ... as this is an issue I pondered much, albeit to no avail, while
at the California Research Bureau.
In general, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT documents are in the public domain, under
U.S. copyright law. (There are some exceptions, usuall, I believe, where
the gov't has republished someone else's copyrighted work.)
That does NOT extend to work of any other government entity (state,
local). Those ARE protected by copyright. (I called the Copyright Office
myself and ASKED. The answer was unequivocal. I also consulted books and
articles by lawyers with expertise in intellectual property law.) Yes,
they ARE public documents, and the copyright is owned BY the public, with
the producing government as its agent. (This is my layman's wording of
it. I am not a lawyer, but as I say, this is something I looked into while
at CRB.) Some folks get confused by the Public Records Act requirement
that public documents be shown to those who request. That, however, is an
obligation to reveal, and it does not place the material in the public
domain nor does it constitute permission to use the material. (I know one
lawyer in California government, for example, who was confused about this,
apparently being unaware of the changes made by the Copyright Act of
1976. Unfortunately, he worked for the State Library, and refused to let
us register copyrights for our reports or even put copyright notices on them.)
Legislatures have certain privileges to reproduce documents, even
copyrighted ones, for legislative purposes (hearings and the like). (That
is my recollection--I have not checked chapter and verse lately, so do not
take my word for this.) But that does not place the materials into the
public domain.
Now ... irrespective of copyright/public domain, passing off someone else's
work as one's own is fraud, and might be prosecutable, depending on the
circumstances.
As for the specific question of when a school district document becomes
public domain, I believe (someone correct me if I am wrong) the short
answer is "when the district--the copyright owner--explicitly places the
document IN the public domain. Until it does, the district owns the
copyight, and hence control over use and reproduction.
Again, I am NOT a lawyer, but did spend some time with this issue while at
CRB, and I did consult experts.
For more information, from a California perspective, see
http://www.bsa.ca.gov/bsa/summaries/2000-110.html .
Ken
At 12:17 PM 5/26/2004 -0400, you wrote:
>...
>Date: Wed, 26 May 2004 11:39:28 -0400
>From: Dennis Hollingsead <hollings@ANDREWS.EDU>
>Subject: Re: TAR: plagiarism-Devil's Advocate
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>Wait a minute! ALL Federal Government documents are freely distributable
>aren't
>they. What about State Government documents? Aren't documents created at
>taxpayer
>expense, public documents? Admittedly he should reveal the source and
>probably
>should have asked permission, and the fact that he passed it off as his
>own shows
>some character traits. But State legislatures 'borrow' from each other all
>the time
>(most likely with permission). When does a school district document become
>public
>domain, if ever?
...
--------------------------------------------------------------
Kenneth W. Umbach, Ph.D.
Research-Writing-Editing-Consulting
Ken@umbachconsulting.com
Knowledge Quest columnist,
"Policy and Data Resources on the Web"
http://www.umbachconsulting.com
6966 Sunrise Blvd., #263
Citrus Heights, CA 95610
916-733-2159 -- voice
Also see my http://www.capitolweasel.com
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