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:Public domain status of official US government works - Misplaced Pages

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The public domain status of official government works is sometimes difficult to determine, but keeps coming up on Misplaced Pages again and again. There are some easy cases: works of the United States federal government, for example, are not protected by copyright and are thus in the public domain. The same does not hold in general for the works of other governments. Determining whether all works, or particular works, of a particular government are in the public domain requires research and possibly even legal advice.

Open issues

NJGov and NCGov

Could an admin please restore Template:NJGov found and Template:NCGov found; interesting - There's a case for PD-NCGov. But it's quite iffy., e.g. to my userspace? I would like to review the citations; they may have been erroneously deleted as Template:PD-FLGov was. I just read the TfD. Note: Please include the citations! --Elvey (talk) 18:37, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Update: Never mind. I looked over the old templates; I think they WERE invalid and were appropriately overwritten with a redirect.--Elvey (talk) 21:24, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Template:PD-CAGov

Works of the state government of California. TfD debate is archived here.

Duk inquired about this matter :

I just got the following email after talking to several State of California lawyers:
...The ownership issue disclosed on each State website puts the "information" contained on the website in the public domain. However, this does not include copyrightable materials such as photographs. Photographs taken by State of California workers while on State of California business are owned by the State of California, and should not be used commercially without State of California approval. Other photographs taken by and owned by individuals that may be on a State website should not be used commercially without the owner's approval.

Note: the above is from a few years ago ('06). The following is current ('09):

News

CA Appellate court says "writings of public officials and agencies" available under California’s public records law (CPRA), are generally not subject to copyright
California County Hoarding Map Data Ordered to Pay $500,000.

( I found that one reporter doesn't know a ruling from a settlement!!) found the court's ruling. I see the judge refers to Microdecisions v Skinner several times! Wow! My reading is that the court is unanimously stating (on p. 35-36) that it interprets the CA constitution to grant the people access to the public record without restrictions, except where the legislature has made an exception. The constitutional wording is quite different, but it seems the court is saying that much like in FL, "writings of public officials and agencies" available under California’s public records law (CPRA), are generally not subject to copyright. The times are a-callin for a {{PD-CAGov}} resurrection? I just asked the deleter to discuss here. Perhaps we should investigate/wait to see if there's an appeal to the state supreme court?--Elvey (talk) 00:34, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

It's not important compared to the above ruling, but http://ca.gov/use.html#ownership does say:
"In general, information presented on this web site, unless otherwise indicated, is considered in the public domain. It may be distributed or copied as permitted by law. However, the State does make use of copyrighted data (e.g., photographs) which may require additional permissions prior to your use. In order to use any information on this web site not owned or created by the State, you must seek permission directly from the owning (or holding) sources."
--Elvey (talk) 07:44, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
There's a wikipedia article on the case: County_of_Santa_Clara_v._California_First_Amendment_Coalition.--Elvey (talk) 22:26, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Template:PD-MTGov

Seems to confuse PD with public record. Seems to be an orphan. Redirect to DI template?--Elvey (talk) 00:55, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I've redirected it: it quotes all sorts of law about what is a "public record", but says nothing about the copyright status of those records. --Carnildo (talk) 01:09, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
Nice to cooperate with you. :) --Elvey (talk) 18:28, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
I went digging through some Montana code and found this: 2-6-102. Citizens entitled to inspect and copy public writings. That says that citizens have the right to "inspect and take a copy of any public writings of this state" except: 1) library records, 2) burial records, 3) individual privacy interests, 4) details of jails/prisons that may endanger individual privacy or individual or public safety. This appears to be very similar to this text in the Florida constitution, which gets a PD tag: "Every person has the right to inspect or copy any public record made or received in connection with the official business of any public body, officer, or employee of the state, or persons acting on their behalf, except with respect to records exempted pursuant to this section or specifically made confidential by this Constitution." Is there anything that makes Montana's situation significantly different? If not, it seems like this template should be cleaned up (citing the code above) and restored. - Afiler (talk) 20:39, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Closed issues

U.S. State governments

In most cases, products of state and local governments are not PD, so the following templates mostly point to a 'deletable image' template. Exceptions are noted.