Comments on: Just sent to my state reps on copyright law http://www.joeszilagyi.com/2009/10/30/just-sent-to-my-state-reps-on-copyright-law/ Tech person, writer, gamer, political junkie Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:21:34 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Jeff http://www.joeszilagyi.com/2009/10/30/just-sent-to-my-state-reps-on-copyright-law/comment-page-1/#comment-45795 Jeff Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:16:05 +0000 http://www.joeszilagyi.com/?p=2252#comment-45795 Couldn't agree more. No one should even have to be making "fair use" arguments, because TVW shouldn't be asserting a copyright on most of their materials anyway. For example, with regard to their Washington Supreme Court recordings, the combination of being publicly fund *and* recording a public government proceeding makes the idea of any copyright on that material doubly absurd. Unfortunately, this seems to happen all the time. I subscribe to the state's "Official Advance Sheets of the Washington Reports (Containing Cases Determined in the Supreme Court Washington)", published by LexisNexis. The good news is that Lexis doesn't assert copyright on those materials, as they seem to do in so many other cases, but strangely they *do* assert a copyright on behalf of the State of Washington. What does it mean for the government to have a copyright? I suspect that Lexis simply can't fathom the concept of something being out of copyright.... Couldn’t agree more. No one should even have to be making “fair use” arguments, because TVW shouldn’t be asserting a copyright on most of their materials anyway. For example, with regard to their Washington Supreme Court recordings, the combination of being publicly fund *and* recording a public government proceeding makes the idea of any copyright on that material doubly absurd.

Unfortunately, this seems to happen all the time. I subscribe to the state’s “Official Advance Sheets of the Washington Reports (Containing Cases Determined in the Supreme Court Washington)”, published by LexisNexis. The good news is that Lexis doesn’t assert copyright on those materials, as they seem to do in so many other cases, but strangely they *do* assert a copyright on behalf of the State of Washington. What does it mean for the government to have a copyright?

I suspect that Lexis simply can’t fathom the concept of something being out of copyright….

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