[cc-community] US Federal sites claiming copyright restrictions

Chris Watkins chriswaterguy at appropedia.org
Tue Feb 12 07:35:06 EST 2008


Thanks Jon,

Actually, contacting them is my next step. I just wanted to check first if
there were any insights on this, anything I'd missed. Glad to hear you've
had good results.

I did contact Pacific Northwest National Laboratory <http://www.pnl.gov/> a
while back, as I couldn't see a permissions notice on the site. I was told "we
are no direct employees of the government. Each employee is a contractor
with Battelle." So, based on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_of_the_United_States_Government#Works_produced_by_contractorsit
seems like their work is *not* public domain. But that's just one site
-
many more still to try.

Chris

On Feb 12, 2008 7:39 PM, Jon Phillips <jon at creativecommons.org> wrote:

> Chris, have you tried to contact them about this? I've taken pretty bold
> steps on contacting these orgs in the past and had great results...
>
> Regardless, I'm happy to see more movement in this area of data mining
> public data...
>
> Jon
>
> On Mon, 2008-02-11 at 19:50 -0600, Rich Vázquez wrote:
> > I absolutely agree with the "shoulds"  of the tone and that they
> > should be more explicit to encourage the fact that it's open for
> > usage.  Frankly, I think this is influenced by:
> > 1) The tone of the agency, and as we know some people have been
> > stationed in agencies even though they have argued against what they
> > stand for.  Those who want to spread their mission the most tend to be
> > the most open.
> > 2) Possibly the tone of the person doing the actual content deployment
> > and the hyper attitude towards copyright some webmaster and designers
> > tend to have at times.
> >
> > It would be nice if along with requiring public domain access an
> > explicit statement of access and openness was required as well.
> >
> > I think the VistaWeb system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VistA_Web)
> > was originally released due to lawsuit or FOIA request, but once it
> > was out it flourished.  I think the owners didn't mind, but the lack
> > of openness in their worldview was enough to hinder it for quite some
> > time.
> >
> > On Feb 11, 2008 5:37 PM, Chris Watkins <chriswaterguy at appropedia.org>
> > wrote:
> >         On Feb 12, 2008 10:19 AM, Rich Vázquez
> >         <rich.vazquez at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >                 I believe the TVA statements protects the public  from
> >                 publishing or acting under the guise of TVA.
> >
> >         For the trademarks, logos and service marks, that's fair
> >         enough, but the vague reference to copyrighted material gives
> >         the impression that anything on the site shouldn't be touched,
> >         without actually saying so.
> >
> >
> >                 Some government agencies produce web sites with works
> >                 created by others, especially images.  Rights to
> >                 photographs, etc. might  be donated or purchased from
> >                 individuals or non-profits which retain rights to the
> >                 works.
> >
> >         Yes - but other US federal sites I've seen deal with this in a
> >         much more open way - they have a clear statement to the effect
> >         that everything is public domain unless it's marked as
> >         copyright. E.g. http://www.usaid.gov/faqs.html#q15 - "Unless a
> >         copyright is indicated, information on this Web site is in the
> >         public domain and may be reproduced, published or otherwise
> >         used without USAID's permission."
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >                 --
> >                 --
> >                 Rich Vázquez
> >
> >
> >                 On Feb 11, 2008 5:14 PM, Chris Watkins
> >                 <chriswaterguy at appropedia.org> wrote:
> >
> >
> >                         Can anyone lend some insight or legal
> >                         perspectives into sites such as the following
> >                         two, which claim copyright even though they're
> >                         US  federal sites - an agency in one case, a
> >                         federally owned corporation in the other.
> >
> >                         The EPA.gov site, which is federal and should
> >                         be public domain (assuming it's the work of
> >                         federal employee), states that "Commercial use
> >                         of the documents available from this server
> >                         may be protected under the U.S. and Foreign
> >                         Copyright Laws". This is worded very vaguely,
> >                         but I assume the only way it could make sense
> >                         is if a third party held the copyright - in
> >                         which case the permission to distribute or
> >                         copy doesn't make sense. The full statement
> >                         is:
> >
> >                         "Information presented on this WWW site is
> >                         considered public information and may be
> >                         distributed or copied. The U.S. Government
> >                         retains a nonexclusive, royalty-free license
> >                         to publish or reproduce these documents, or
> >                         allow others to do so, for U.S. Government
> >                         purposes. These documents may be freely
> >                         distributed and used for non-commercial,
> >                         scientific and educational purposes.
> >                         Commercial use of the documents available from
> >                         this server may be protected under the U.S.
> >                         and Foreign Copyright Laws. Individual
> >                         documents on this server may have different
> >                         copyright conditions, and that will be noted
> >                         in those documents."
> >
> >
> >                         (This is for a regional sub-website of the
> >                         EPA, as I could find no statement for the site
> >                         as a whole. But I think the same principle
> >                         applies.)
> >
> >                         Another confusing site is tva.gov - although
> >                         TVA is a federally owned corporation, the
> >                         notice at http://www.tva.gov/disclaim.htm
> >                         states: 'All trademarks, logos, service marks,
> >                         and copyrighted material contained on this Web
> >                         site ("marks") are the property of TVA'. (A
> >                         bit unclear - they don't specify what material
> >                         actually is copyright, and no copyright
> >                         notices were found, in a brief browse. )
> >
> >                         Both TVA and EPA have content we'd love to use
> >                         on Appropedia (about sustainability and
> >                         renewable energy) but obviously we can't do so
> >                         if there's any uncertainty about whether it's
> >                         public domain.
> >
> >                         Chris
> >
> >                         --
> >                         Chris Watkins  (a.k.a. Chriswaterguy)
> >
> >                         Founding admin at Appropedia.org, the wiki of:
> >                                             - International
> >                         development
> >                                             - Anti-poverty strategies
> >                                             - Sustainability
> >                                             - Appropriate technology
> >                                             - Collaboration for
> >                         practical solutions
> >
> >                         Founding director, Appropedia Foundation,
> >                         501(c)(3)
> >
> >                         Buy online through
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> >
> >                         The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of
> >                         the environment. - Tim Wirth
> >
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> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> >
> >
> >
> >
> >         --
> >         Chris Watkins  (a.k.a. Chriswaterguy)
> >
> >         Founding admin at Appropedia.org, the wiki of:
> >                             - International development
> >                             - Anti-poverty strategies
> >                             - Sustainability
> >                             - Appropriate technology
> >                             - Collaboration for practical solutions
> >
> >         Founding director, Appropedia Foundation, 501(c)(3)
> >
> >         Buy online through http://appropedia.maatiam.com (Amazon, eBay
> >         and more) and a percentage of your purchase goes to Appropedia
> >         - at no extra cost to you.
> >
> >         The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment. -
> >         Tim Wirth
> >
> >         _______________________________________________
> >         cc-community mailing list
> >         cc-community at lists.ibiblio.org
> >         http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-community
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > --
> > Rich Vázquez
> > _______________________________________________
> > cc-community mailing list
> > cc-community at lists.ibiblio.org
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-community
> --
> Jon Phillips
> jon at creativecommons.org
> skype: kidproto (preferred phone)
> im: kidproto
> china phone: +86 1-360-282-8624
>
> Business + Community Manager
> Creative Commons
> www.creativecommons.org
>
>
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-- 
Chris Watkins  (a.k.a. Chriswaterguy)

Founding admin at Appropedia.org, the wiki of:
                    - International development
                    - Anti-poverty strategies
                    - Sustainability
                    - Appropriate technology
                    - Collaboration for practical solutions

Founding director, Appropedia Foundation, 501(c)(3)

Buy online through http://appropedia.maatiam.com (Amazon, eBay and more) and
a percentage of your purchase goes to Appropedia - at no extra cost to you.

The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment. - Tim Wirth
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