Oregon Attorney General releases "copyrighted" Public Meeting Manual, will hold hearings on whether Oregon law is copyrighted

Rogue archivist Carl Malamud sez,

People may remember there has been a bit of a spat over the Oregon Attorney General's Public Meeting Manual. This is part of a series of issues in the state of Oregon over the question of who may copy and public the law of the land.

I'm pleased to report that Attorney General John Kroger today released that manual, appointed a special Deputy Counsel to handle these kinds of transparency issues, and announced a set of hearings about the issues involved.

This is good news! It does not yet address the most fundamental issues, such as whether the state may assert copyright over the law, but it is a formal set of hearings that will examine the issue, which we're happily going to participate in.

Some background on the Oregon issue is available at the Public.Resource.Org Oregon.Gov page and you should read the Attorney General's announcement. If Oregon resolves the issue of who may copyright the law, this will be real progress.

ATTORNEY GENERAL JOHN KROGER ANNOUNCES GOVERNMENT TRANSPARENCY INITIATIVE

(Thanks, Carl!)