Public Domain and liability

[Seth David Schoen]

Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M. writes:

> I think it may be a very good idea. In fact, some states are developing free
> software...especially state-run universities. It's fairly well-known that
> the contributions of the Univeristy of Illinois and UC-Berkeley are
> significant in regards to  Internet software.
> 
> States, of course, will not give away all (or even most) of their
> intellectual property, but I think some have made significant contributions
> as a result of the software development projects at universities, which
> often are sponsored by Federal grants.

There's some interesting argument going on these days, too, because
under some state public records laws, software developed by a state
(not necessarily by a contractor or vendor) will be a public record,
so that anybody may request a copy.  (Some contractors are kind of
scared about that, too.  Remember that the ACLU recently made a very
high-profile Federal FOIA request for the source code of the FBI's
extremely secret Carnivore software.  There are some law enforcement
exceptions in the FOIA, so the FBI might not have to comply, but in
general, it seems both Federal and state agencies would have to turn
over most source code to most of their software, on request.)

It's pretty clear that states can hold patents, but public records
laws might severely limit their ability to use copyrights to control
use of their original works.

I once made a joke about requesting copies of all the work of a friend
who works for a state government, but it's actually quite possible, in
general.  So what happens if someone tries to redistribute works of
authorship which are matters of public record?  How about derivation
and sublicensing?

-- 
Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org>  | And do not say, I will study when I
Temp.  http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/  | have leisure; for perhaps you will
down:  http://www.loyalty.org/   (CAF)  | not have leisure.  -- Pirke Avot 2:5