Oregon to hold hearings on whether its laws are copyrighted

Rogue archivist Carl Malamud writes in with the latest news on the fight with the State of Oregon's claim that Oregon's laws are copyrighted:

Last week, we posted a draft declaratory judgment action indicating our seriousness in getting to the bottom of the controversy over copyright on Oregon state law, and asked people on the net to comment. Today, we received a letter today from the Legislative Counsel of the State of Oregon. The letter says:
"The established policy of the committee - unchanged since 1953 - has been to copyright those portions of the Oregon Revised Statutes that are not the actual law itself. Your clients advocate a change in that copyright policy. The committee wishes to meet to consider its copyright policy in light of technological developments and the Internet. The Legislative Assembly is not currently in session, so getting immediate policy direction from the committee is not possible. The committee plans to meet on June 19, 2008, and would be interested in hearing testimony from you or your clients on the changes your clients seek in the copyright policy of the committee."

Link (Thanks, Carl!)

Discussion

Take a look at this

#1 posted by Tenn , May 21, 2008 6:53 PM

There is debate on this? How can there possibly be debate on this?

#2 posted by Sister Y , May 21, 2008 7:27 PM

Will the debate be copyrighted? Maybe they should debate that first.

#3 posted by Jordie , May 21, 2008 8:11 PM

In political legalese (in which you can never commit to anything unless it's been voted on by council, senate, whatever) that letter sounds like they're saying they realized the existing copyright rules are dumb and want to change them.

This entire kerfuffle about Oregon having copyrighted laws seems to me to be a matter of someone realizing the law they're enforcing is archaic

I guess they finally have

#4 posted by holtt , May 21, 2008 9:04 PM

Given it's from 1953, yea it's archaic. I'd think that unless you're like Bush et al you can't just arbitrarily flip a switch and turn a law off even if it is dumb and you know it - formalities exist for a reason.

#5 posted by ktsmurf , May 22, 2008 2:20 AM

As a native Oregonian, I would like to apologize on behalf of my state. We try pretty hard, and we get most things right, but we totally dropped the ball here.

#6 posted by Explosive Amnesia , May 22, 2008 6:13 AM

Darn. I was hoping their claim was that the statutes themselves are copyrighted. I enjoy considering the ramifications of that such as: following the law can be considered a copyright violation.

#7 posted by Enochrewt , May 22, 2008 7:59 AM

I was in Portland a couple of weekends ago, and every opportunity that I had (that wasn't completely awkward) I went up and asked residents of the state about this. I even got half the bar asking me questions about it on Saturday night. Not a single resident I talked to had heard about it, or really cared. I was there for a college graduation, and most of the people I talked to were 20-30 years of age.

#8 posted by djam , May 22, 2008 8:40 AM

if they're, who owns the copyright? why does it matter anyway, is somebody copying Oregons laws and selling them as their own work?

#9 posted by The Unusual Suspect , May 22, 2008 10:00 AM

Surprisingly, the Legislative Counsel of the State of Oregon apparently fails to realize that one does not copyright something in the sense that one patents something.

The only debate here is whether statute law might be an applicable work.

#10 posted by trr , May 22, 2008 11:39 AM

As another Oregonian,
I'll apologize too, but add that it's not surprising...we get a lot of things wrong here! (contra-Ktsmurf)

#11 posted by Eric Smith