WV Assessor Sues to Keep Tax Maps Off the Internet

An anonymous reader writes "After trying to charge $167,488 for their collection of county tax maps (in TIF format), West Virginia was forced by a judge to hand them over for a $20 'reproduction costs' fee. Now a county tax assessor has filed a lawsuit trying to block the tax maps from being put online, claiming copyright infringement and financial damages since fewer people are coming to her to buy paper copies at $8 per page."

Comments

OK, it's three things that are certain in life...

[1gor]

lawsuits is the third.

Public Record?

[AndGodSed]

I thought in the US these things were public record? Or am I wrong.

Re:Public Record?

[barzok]

That's exactly what I thought.

A quick Google search confirmed that many municipalities do consider them public record (whether they are or not); Sacramento, CA's site is very helpful (I picked one at random), but also protects identifying data like parcel ownership.

Re:Public Record?

[fyrewulff]

Interestingly, Omaha does this aswell:

http://www.dcassessor.org/

However, they do display parcel ownership. In fact, by name is one of the search options..

Re:Public Record?

[Anonymous Coward]

They absolutely are. Anyone who works in your local Register of Deeds/Registrar/Clerk of Courts (depending on the state) will tell you that these and other documents like deeds, deeds of trust, or powers of attorney are the property of the public as spelled out by General Statutes.

Hell, you can't even get documents with your SSN removed from the online archive -- and I do not mean vital records like a birth certificate, which are rarely (if ever) available to the general public online. If you had a mortgage recorded before identity theft gained national awareness, it's probable that your attorney or bank had your SSN on the documents you signed that were then put into the public record. The reason? No malice, really -- it was just common industry practice. Now, this does not really exist, and some states have even passed legislation making it illegal. Some registrars are doing redaction of social security numbers on electronic versions of these documents, but there are several issues with this: 1) it is *only* the electronic version and although that is generally adequate all documents are also microfilmed and stored (most registrars did away with printing books years ago) forever -- those records will never get changed; 2) it is generally the large counties doing this because it is an expensive process.

So, if you can't get a social security number removed from public record, forget about some titlesearcher, surveyor, or tax assessor keeping *entire* documents already committed to public record for their own profit. It belongs to the public now -- it is not your intellectual property.

Disclaimer: I work for a large county Register of Deeds office.

Re:Public Record?

[base3]

Jackson County, Missouri as well. A stalker's dream, perhaps, but public records are public records, and it's about time they are available to other than lawyers, investigators, and people with the luxury of 9-5 M-F idle time to visit the courthouse. There was an attempt in Missouri pass a law to let "special" (i.e. cops and politicians) people opt-out, which was fortunately defeated. If there is indeed a privacy concern, then perhaps what is public record needs to be redefined for *everyone* rather than letting the powerful opt out (and it's not as if they can't hide their ownership through shell corporations and nominees, anyway).

Re:Public Record?

[pla]

but also protects identifying data like parcel ownership.

Umm, that counts as a matter of public record as well. You can go to any county office in the country and, theoretically, pull the deeds for every parcel in that county (though in many places, they consider that their little fiefdom and make it as hard as possible, without paying the outrageous fees mention in TFA, for a cheap photocopy).

They shouldn't "protect" that information, they should just make it a removeable overlay (since most uses probably don't care).

Re:Public Record?

[cfulmer]

Well, they may be. But, there's no law that says that public records can't be copyrighted. US Government works can't be, but this is West Virginia.

Re:Public Record?

[SQLGuru]

Travis count (Austin, TX) as well: http://www.traviscad.org/search1.php

For example, one of the factories is valued at just under $185M: http://www.traviscad.org/travisdetail.php?theKey=535002

Layne

Re:Public Record?

[senor mouse]

Missouri, you say? Hmmm. Seems a frustrated citizen very recently mowed down the mayor and city council of a town in that state. Politicians beware.

Re:Public Record?

[snarfies]

"Public record" does not mean "free."

I used to be an auto insurance adjuster with a three-state territory (MD, DC, and VA) (yeah, I'm counting DC - that's where the majority of my cases were). As such, I had to obtain police reports, often. Police reports, at least with regards to auto accidents, are public record. If you just happen to drive past an accident, and note when and where it was, you can request a police report if you like.

NONE of the municipalities I dealt with had any online availability. I had to physically mail them a request, and almost ALL police jurisdictions charged for copies of the accident reports. In DC, it was $3. In Prince George County, MD, it was $5. I know there was one municipality in VA that charged $15 for the report (I THINK it was Orange, VA, but I could be wrong).

Re:Public Record?

[frankie]

In Southern Building Code vs Veeck:

The Fifth Circuit further observed that laws are not subject to federal copyright law, and "public ownership of the law means that 'the law' is in the 'public domain' for whatever use the citizens choose to make of it."

Re:Public Record?

[HungWeiLo]

In Clark County, Nevada (county that Las Vegas resides in), you can search properties based on the owner's name.

http://www.co.clark.nv.us/ASSESSOR/Disclaim.htm

Re:Public Record?

[penix1]

Disclaimer: I live in WV and more importantly, in Kanawha County where this is happening. More, I do GIS for a living so I'm biased to the max in this...

All the tax assessors in WV have been doing a very poor job at property assessments and for years have buried it in poor paper maps. I have been to municipalities that haven't updated their tax maps in decades. I've also seen the quality of these maps and believe me, until recently they were very sketchy at best. We have had the difference between tax ticket method of determining Fair Market Value with a multiplier of 4.0 and appraised value of over double. In a properly assessed county by contrast, a 1.67 multiplier yields the appraised value. What that means is that Kanawha County is losing out on a huge amount of taxes all because the assessor's office is corrupt as all get out. This causes politicians to panic as they see dwindling taxes and before you know it those that are paying a fair share are having their property taxes increased all because the assessor isn't doing their jobs properly.

More broadly, municipalities have relied on the fees charged for paper copies of public documents so much that they feel threatened by electronic distribution. In this case it is the assessor's office but I have seen this in other areas such as deeds, birth / death certification, building permits, etc. They are seeing it as a revenue stream instead of something the public already paid for. This thinking needs to be defeated as well as those that oppose full and free disclosure.

I agree with you that all the information in a tax assessment of real property should be public record if for no other reason than the fact that the public has already paid for that information.

Re:Public Record?

[Tacvek]

"Public record" does not mean "free."

I used to be an auto insurance adjuster with a three-state territory (MD, DC, and VA) (yeah, I'm counting DC - that's where the majority of my cases were). As such, I had to obtain police reports, often. Police reports, at least with regards to auto accidents, are public record. If you just happen to drive past an accident, and note when and where it was, you can request a police report if you like.

NONE of the municipalities I dealt with had any online availability. I had to physically mail them a request, and almost ALL police jurisdictions charged for copies of the accident reports. In DC, it was $3. In Prince George County, MD, it was $5. I know there was one municipality in VA that charged $15 for the report (I THINK it was Orange, VA, but I could be wrong). Fair enough. However, it should be possible to see the records for free if you are willing to be in the same place as the record. A $3-$5 fee for a police report seems about right (which is to say just a tiny bit overpriced) when you consider the copying costs, mailing costs, and the costs of the associated labor. (Paying the officer to find the record, copy it, replace it, fill out the envelope, place the copy inside, apply postage, and place in the mailbox.) I mean sure it sucks, but they still need to recover the costs.

Re:Public Record?

[Foobar of Borg]

There was an attempt in Missouri pass a law to let "special" (i.e. cops and politicians) people opt-out, which was fortunately defeated.

Interestingly enough, data mining companies do exempt public officials and famous people from their search results. I guess they don't want to get sued when someone stalks them. Of course, all us "little people" can get stalked and attacked by random psychos and they don't give a shit. I imagine exempting public officials also makes it more likely that selling such information to whoever has a few bucks to spare is going to remain legal for the foreseeable future.

Re:Public Record?

[Anonymous Coward]

public record, they can only charge for making copies.

Re:Public Record?

[Zymergy]

They *are* indeed Public Records. You have every right to go see them. (Many Counties have you file an affidavit of identity and/or purpose to protect them from stalkers and identity thieves, etc...)
Just go down to your local County Assessor's Office and/or County Clerk's Office and/or Court Clerk's Office and you may well be surprised what are in public records. (Of course, the hours of operation are M-F 8-5 typically) I have to tell you, it beats Googleing someone (if you know what county they live in and have the time to go there during banker's hours.)
This is about loss of per-copy income to the particular clerk's office from providing copies of official documents and plat maps. (Which will still have to be paid for if a "certified" copy is needed for court proceedings, etc..) The clerk will just have to raise the cost of the copies made to offset the losses or raise some other tax or fee to offset the loss (such as filing fees).
The clerk's offices in my state are non-profit, and believe me... they do spend the money on improving their products and services. They are non-profit and headed by a publicly-elected official.
As this particular office FTA provides *.TIF images of their official Documents/Instruments/Plats, either they are particularly advanced technologically for an Assessor's/Clerk's office, or they are contractually outsourcing to a third party document archiving company.. Either way, the Judge's orders make the Assessor's/Clerk's business model fail and they will need to charge exorbitant rates to maintain their contract or stop producing scans on all files Legal Documents and Instruments.

Many courthouses in my state have a similar online 3rd-Party records system for the County Clerk's Records (but not all Counties contribute):
http://okcountyrecords.com/index.php
(You will have to file an affidavit and obtain a *free* login from a participating county's County Clerk to view read-only non-printable PDF's of records, however, you can pay $1 per page and print it locally (unlocks the PDF file and removes watermark) or have clean copies mailed to you. There are also State Supreme Court Network Records Online covering the largest 13 counties in my state: http://www.oscn.net/applications/oscn/start.asp?viewType=DOCKETS
My State's District Court Records are Online too: http://www.odcr.com/

But, for now, County (Tax) Assessor's Offices' in each county of my state are not online (that I am aware of).. A special trip to every county courthouse is needed.
I politely pay a modest fee for an official copy of the surface ownership plat map and list of any/all surface owners (for any given legally described section of land I am researching.)

It is now quite common for digital cameras to be used in public court record vaults statewide (with completed free filed affidavit), however, flash is not allowed and you are not allowed to take images of the handwritten index books. NOTE: These Index books are NOT public records, they are the handwritten indices which the County Clerk use as a means to organize the seemingly otherwise random public records by physical location (legal land description). There are thousands of volumes of records with 500-800 pages each dating back to Statehood. The County clerks typically charge $1 per page to obtain a copy of each page of their non-public indexes covering the library of public records. They will allow you to use their index books freely as long as you follow the posted rules and agree to not scan or take photos of their books.

This raises the crux of the argument of the Assessor's Office. Tax records, though being some of the most accurate and up-to-date records, ARE public records. And from the read, they are resisting placing their tax maps online. These Assessor's Office tax surface-plat maps are akin to the County Clerk's Index bo

Re:Public Record?

[aevans]

Yes there is law that says that public records can't be copyrighted. West Virginia is in the United States. Or were you just trying to make a lame joke based on your lack of knowledge of geography?

Re:Public Record?

[sunking2]

Yes, they are public record. How much do you think it would cost you to go to each municipality, get their data, then analyze and combine it into a usable form? Probably around $167k :)

Speaking from experience, this is actually a very complicated problem because tax zones don't map into a simple state -> county -> city -> zip. You can have cities and zips that are in multiple counties and all sorts of other funky combinations. While address works 99% of the time, you really have to define the tax zones by their long/lat coordinates because they can be that bizaar. There are companies out there that offer software to do this, and it's their business. The state just wants to get their cut. I don't see it as a big deal. This isn't exactly something that joe public cares about, but joe company does. No harm in charging joe company in my book. It's part of doing business.

Re:Public Record?

[torkus]

TBH I didn't read your entire post. I do want to comment on one bit thought:

"This is about loss of per-copy income to the particular clerk's office from providing copies of official documents and plat maps. (Which will still have to be paid for if a "certified" copy is needed for court proceedings, etc..) The clerk will just have to raise the cost of the copies made to offset the losses or raise some other tax or fee to offset the loss (such as filing fees). "

For the most part, doing that would be illegal. The fee charged i suspposed to cover labor, copying cost, mailing, etc. and ONLY those services. As these documents are public domain the office is giving them away - not charging for the information. This is why they were forced to hand over all the maps fo $20, not $167K or whatever. If they're receiving income from providing these documents then they're operating outside of the law to being with. Raising the fees to compensate for fewer requests to maintain income won't fly. Or, at a minimum ,will result in another losing lawsuit and at worst buy someone a corruption charge.

Re:Public Record?

[belmolis]

At only $8 each, I'm surprised that enough people buy tax maps for that to constitute a significant revenue stream. How many do they sell?

Re:Public Record?

[Zymergy]

You make a good point, but the tax maps are not necessarily the same as public records.
-This is about a private company profiting from the derived works of the Tax Assessors from the actual public records.
The written documents they are created from by the County Assessor's Offices' are Public Records. It is these *written* Legal Tax Assessment Records (written descriptions, not maps) that are Public Documents not the plat maps of surface ownership created from them (unless one is filed into the record). These "maps" are in-house documents the Assessor's create to assist in their tracking of and future Assessing of geographic property values and any improvements made to it.
In my state they physically come around on foot and even take pictures of any structures or "improvements" made to the property for tax assessment purposes. I recently built a large Steel/Concrete Garage/Shop beside my home and sure enough.. it raised my property values and taxes when the County Assessor's field team came around. (Which also raised my property insurance rates.) These "Surface Plat Maps" are created at great expense *from public written records* by every county and kept on file in the County Assessor's Office.

It is these very in-house surface plat ownership maps which are made by the County Assessor's Offices from *written* publicly available documents (Legal Instruments) that the FOIA Request was intended to obtain FTA. These maps are made at considerable expense by every County Assessor's Office using mapmakers and field survey crews. They are NOT actually public records, however, each office will make you a copy of them at $8 per page (or whatever).
The maps are created FROM public written records and are intended to assist the Tax Assessor's and their field researchers (and anyone else willing to take notes from simply *viewing* the plats in the Assessor's Office for free *or* any party wanting to pay the $8 per page for a copy.

What has actually happened here is the counties instead of physically making a copy per page, have scanned the maps into *.TIF images for the benefit of all (and they charge $8 to print one of their images).
This company "Seneca Technologies" has misled/misinformed/neglected to tell the whole story to the FOIA Judge into believing the maps are public records. Now they are placing them online to freely distribute. This is actually a violation of the County Assessor's rights.
Seneca Technologies at any time can obtain the written tax assessment PUBLIC documents and draft up to date surface plat maps themselves out of the millions of Legal Tax Instruments for the the state of West Virginia and post the maps themselves. But instead Millions of Tax dollars have been spent to create these maps by every County Assessor and one judge decides to give them to a for-profit company to give away (without affidavits of identity filed for security purposes on who might be "researching" in them, think criminals).

The Assessor's Offices of West Virginia (and I am sure in may other places in America) are learning very important lessons here.
SCAN NOTHING. FORCE PAPER COPIES ONLY. That way when a judge orders 20,936 plat map pages to be given over to a private for-profit third party for $20, they CAN BE BILLED a reasonable $8 fee each for every page.
Also, there is nothing illegal about the County Assessor from charging more $ for every tax filing (and through a vote also raising property taxes) now that their already subsidized filing fees (from selling $8 copies of THEIR created maps FROM public records) must now be "given" away. Their public above-board budgets consider that $8 per page copy fee.
Also showing up in person to get copies (even if digital) restricts Nigerian Scammers (and Stalkers and other Criminals such as Identity Thieves, etc..) from reading West Virginia, USA Tax Records freely online without showing their happy faces in the Courthouses. (NOTE: Most Felons and Criminals fail to research their targets IN PERSON in the County Cou

Re:Public Record?

[FLEB]

Cite?

From what I've seen, I'm inclined to agree with the GPP. I know, for instance, that my state's transportation department maps (MI) are Copyrighted, All Rights Reserved. AFAIK, Federal government works are free from copyright, but that doesn't necessarily extend to State government works. Although geographically, a state is part of the nation, its State government is not a subsidiary or dependent.

Re:Public Record?

[torkus]

Wall of text crits me. I die. Lol...i thought i was loquacious!

Again, though, I have to disagree. Any document generated by a government agency that is not subject to national security restrictions or classified can be demanded via FOIA. That inclues these maps. Said agency is entitled to a "reasonable fee" to cover the reproduction/distribution costs. It does not cost $20 per TIFF to save them to CD/DVD and they're not entitled to SELL the data for any reason (including to re-coup costs).

Those maps created for "in house" use are still created by a government institution. Whether internally or on contract (i.e. gov't subcontracted the work out) they were paid for with public funds. Those documents, therefore, are PUBLIC. A government office is not a legal entity (i.e. person or corporation) can not hold copyright. The assessor herself can not hold copyright to this information as 1) she did not pay for it and 2) it's not hers. It's their job to create these maps and they're not being created FOR seneca. They're being created because they're necessary for government use. Before Seneca requested them, the maps still existed. I could have walked in and requested to see them. I could have requested copies too.

I don't believe Seneca technologies misled the judge. I feel they ARE legally entitled to this information. What I'm not sure of, is what they can do with the data afterwards. I don't know if they can outright sell the data or sell a ... call it a mini-search engine with a copy of the data provided free or for a nominal reproduction charge. That's a different issue though and related, but not directly relevant to the judge's ruling.

Re:Public Record?

[Zymergy]

Reluctantly, I do admit guilt in being loquacious on this subject. (Part of my job is to work in County Courthouses conducting land, tax, and title research.)

Just because the FOIA may not restrict the free/paid publishing of obtained public records does not mean that is ok to do so. Some public records DO expose individuals and property owners to significant criminal activity potential. I argue that tax records in the form of maps with physical locations and values of said property with names and addresses irresponsibly places an easter egg of data to be exploited. I say let the users be physically seen in the County courthouse records rooms (on camera) gathering data on West Virginia taxpayers and property owners. Scammers now have an easier way to find their targets... just call those who have the highest property taxes first, the location of the isolated million dollar house in the hills to rob... etc..
Note: The single $20 fee was what the judge ruled Seneca Technologies would only have to pay West Virginia for all 20,000+ TIF map images. (I am guessing on DVD-R, etc..?)

This company appears to be attempting to be an online Abstractor of public records in West Virginia. I am unsure if this requires special legal permits, agreements, and security procedures to obtain and to publish public records in West Virginia.
But, in my home state (Oklahoma) we (the public) are required to sign a free Affidavit to the Court Clerk stating that we are (1) not abstractors and (2) are collecting said information and documentation for personal or professional private use and are not publishing or distributing public documents and (3) the documents are not to be distributed to other third parties nor (4) will the documents be treated as official information. Etc.. (I could not find a copy of my Affidavit for the exact language but that is close..)
IANAL, but really we are disagreeing on differing sides of the root legal questions:
-What is the legal definition of a "Public Document" in West Virginia?
-If any derivative County Assessor's Office works are created from said 'public documents' are they too then defined as 'public documents'?
-What then are reasonable "entitlement rights" the "public" defined as, if any, to said County within West Virginia? (Simple M-F 8-5 Paper Copies only may be legally sufficient.)

Based on the above answers, who then is legally entitled to be the official distributor/publisher for the West Virginia County Assessor's for Plat Maps, etc..? (this is an easy one, the office that produced the documents only)
Solution: Produce the requested Plat map files in a 'flattened' state and in the requested TIF format with a FAT 50% gray Watermark loudly stating "NOT AN OFFICIAL RECORD" in bold diagonally over each Plat Map. (This in no way would hinder the information content of the produced records nor its usefulness to any individual and it would ensure the integrity of the derivative alleged "official public record maps".
(This is what Oklahoma Court Clerks already do for their online records, and they require the above Affidavit before they grant you an online login and password to access images of the files, but non-watermarked copies cost $1 but they are not maps)

Now, charge $8 per physical paper plat map copy to anyone who wishes to have one (without said watermark) and do it only from the County Assessor's office.
Without this level of security and quality control over my records as a County Assessor, I would cease and desist any and all scanning and publishing of digital plat maps and ONLY have paper copies on file and for distribution from then on.
Furthermore, I would require an Affidavit similar to the above one on file before copies of the public documents are delivered (because the very same documents could be easily used for criminal activities)
Abuses of public records by criminals have historically been low due to the records being physically located in a County Courthouse with cameras and Assessors and Cle

Re:Public Record?

[penix1]

It isn't just tax maps that are sold but any public record documents As I pointed out in my post. Tax maps in particular they sell loads of considering until recently you couldn't get them electronically and they are required before you buy or sell property, do construction and even get a mortgage. The tax map is also used in conjunction with the FEMA NFIP flood map to determine flood insurance requirements (something that is big in WV given our terrain).

Re:Public Record?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently not. About 20 years ago I worked for a software firm that did shortest path routing (mostly for trucking companies) using the official state highway maps. It turns out that all of these were copywritten by Rand Mcnally even though the states did all the work. Eventually the company sold out to Rand Mcnally and the owners went away rich, I lost my job.

Here in the US the public funds a lot of stuff that ends up in private hands, just look at the Internet. Just look at most of the genetics research. The deal is this: go get yourself a million dollar SBIR grant from (name your favorite agency), create a product, sell it and get rich. The federal government has become THE funding source for the very rich. Republicans may bellyache about to much governmental spending but just look at the budget when Republicans are in office. The Government is a tit to be sucked dry by rich Republicans.

Re:Public Record?

[mounthood]

Disclaimer: I live in WV and more importantly, in Kanawha County where this is happening. More, I do GIS for a living so I'm biased to the max in this...

Slashdot is amazing sometimes -- someone who lives in the area, and works in the industry commenting.

Re:Public Record?

[cfulmer]

17 U.S.C. 105. There are some records which, for public policy reasons, are generally thought to be outside the realm of copyright -- state court decisions, for example. But, there is no general law that exempts all public records. I can't cite to the statute that says "there is no law against . . .", for obvious reasons.

Re:Public Record?

[penix1]

I said I was biased to the max in this. I have been trying to get statewide tax data for years and hit the same brick wall this company hit and I work for the State! So I have this site bookmarked and will be firing off an email to them Monday requesting the data for the entire state. Sad that a State agency has to go this route.

Re:Public Record?

[nobuddy]

What this fails to account for is that those who produced the maps were comissioned and paid to do so. If you are hired by a company to produce a map, and you do so, are you right to then demand another $160k before you hand over the finished work? That is exactly what is happening here. These are public employees, paid with taxes, hired to do this public job, and produce public documents.

Re:Public Record?

[penix1]

http://www.legis.state.wv.us/WVCODE/29B/ChapterEntire.cfm

"29B-1-1. Declaration of policy.

  Pursuant to the fundamental philosophy of the American constitutional form of representative government which holds to the principle that government is the servant of the people, and not the master of them, it is hereby declared to be the public policy of the state of West Virginia that all persons are, unless otherwise expressly provided by law, entitled to full and complete information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts of those who represent them as public officials and employees. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments of government they have created. To that end, the provisions of this article shall be liberally construed with the view of carrying out the above declaration of public policy."

Need I go further?

Re:Public Record?

[torkus]

Late response, but it's late, snowing and i'm bored.

The discussion wasn't about it being appropriate to release possible personal data in the maps. Remove the taxes, you remove the maps. While the taxes exist, the maps must exist. At that point it becomes necessary for the general public to have access if they need/wish to compare their taxation rate with others. This information, by government mandate/policy/whatever is public. "protecting" it because someone might use it for bad intents is generally bad policy i think. Honestly though, finding a $millions house on the hill doesn't require tax maps.

I'm fairly sure 'public document' is defined or inferred on a federal level as federal laws regulate how local gov't can operate. As for derivate works, I'm not sure. My guess would be the company would create and copyright/patent a system for accessing and culminating the information, but keep it independant. The judge essentially said M-F 8-5 paper copies are NOT sufficient. I agree. There's no reason why people should be forced to use something complicated, slow, costly, and archaic just because it changes status quo if there is a better alternative.

If the data is public, anyone can distribute it as long as they're not charging for the raw data (value add is different). As for your idea, what makes a copy official? Why does a copy even NEED to be official? No one is raising a stink about this company taking the maps and then changing data. If a company is going to re-publish this data then maintaining it's integrity becomes their responsibility. To continue, if the watermark doesn't have any impact on usefullness, why would anyone need one WITHOUT the watermark? This is simply an excuse to charge an extra fee for the document. I can not support that idea. All it does is serve to unnecessarialy concentrate power (information is power) to a smaller number of individuals.

A document is either publicly available or not. If something contains too much private information to be published then is should NOT be public. Your argument about related crime being low is entirely unsupported and frankly i think it's another fear factor cover for convincing the general public to follow along like sheep. If there were significant opportunities for crime here, they'd be committed yesterday, today and tomorrow.

This is the information age. I would kindly ask our government to start acting like it. Many companies and even professions have either adapted or died. I wonder which fate will befall our gov't.

Re:Public Record?

[Zymergy]

You may be right. I may not have a legal argument here for the withholding of the West Virginia tax records from the Internet for all to have.
Because the local government (County Assessor's Office, etc..) created the county tax maps then they are public documents (or products from public documents by a government entity) and legally subject to the FOIA.

It is a different argument about the security of having the actual tax maps at the courthouse vs. having scans of them freely online (and probably not legally relevant as far as a FOIA request).
I would put real money that there are far fewer abuses of the information if the person/entity utilizing the public information is logged, regulated, etc.. with some level of oversight if not merely the clerks in the office "seeing over" their own desks witnessing what is being reviewed by whomever in "the public". But this is not enough to support the restriction of the information from being online. The accessibility of the information online is obviously more convenient than trekking down to every courthouse.. but I hope the judge seriously considered putting the information online for THE WORLD to see versus just at the local courthouse...
There is a real resource to be had here by foreign government intelligence agencies (this is the Virginia area) in that it would have looked rather suspicious if they went down to the local office and copied every single map. But apparently the judge knows best. This is a bell you CANNOT un-ring (unless everyone moves and swaps property). It would be very convenient to the US intelligence agencies if tax maps of foreign country's populations were freely posted online with all current property owners and their property values and names/mailing addresses (with any and all improvements and buildings) or could simply be obtained for $20. I can also imagine the mob getting the entire data set and data mining it for a leaked witness' name, or for some other intent. I am just saying that these things are much, much harder to do in person under the watchful eyes of the employees in every VA County Assessor's office in the state. But maybe China or Nigeria deserves to have full and free access to EVERY taxable property in VA and their owners names and assesses and values. I feel that this data has large potential for abuses mentioned here and more importantly, for abuses that I cannot think of. At least there are always shell Companies and Trusts and lawyers, accountants, and proxies of every sort to create some anonymity for those that can afford them.
I can note that within the last few years, The State of Texas passed into law the requirement to expunge all Social Security Numbers from public documents/records on file in their courthouses. Apparently, too many illegal immigrants, etc.. were feloniously forging false identity documentation (identity theft) from the SSN and matching Signatures/addresses in the public record in County Courthouses. Duh! (WAY TO GO TEXAS!)

Also, Certified/Embossed copies of legal instruments, documents, etc.. are required if they are to be used in situations where proof of being genuine is essential for the said document, as in a court of law or other legal matters involving proof of ownership, taxation having been levied/payed. There are frequent "tax sales" on the courthouse steps to properties that have had delinquent taxes, foreclosures, etc.. I am unsure of specific legal certification needs for Tax Maps and Surface Owner Tax roles from the Assessor's office, but I am sure certified copies are often required from the Court Clerk's and the County Clerk's documents on record.
Much like I have a birth certificate to renew my Driver's License, however, I cannot renew my driver's license without a Certified embossed/sealed copy from The State of Oklahoma. Even though it is the same thing in writing, it is unofficial.

I have fears for the abuse of the information discussed and fears that my personal property and tax information will be placed online for the world to

Re:Public Record?

[torkus]

Haha. Gold diggers!

Either something is a freely accessible public document or it's not. Making it easier or more difficult to view is not directly relevant. Security through obscurity is not a long term solution.

Personally I think our government is far too involved, invasive, and overbearing to begin with. I'd be much happier if they did away with most of the tax, property tax and other nonsense. Yes, many government functions would go away too. Just pay for what you need. This "problem" of tax information being public woudn't be quite the same issue.

Along the same lines - Certified documents are just silly. The whole basis behind them is mistrust and the assumption that people will lie by default. The rest of it is just keeping the sheeple in line if you ask me. Why is a DMV clerk's rubber stamp more sacred than my word that a document is true? Heck, at least if I lie you (in theory) could come after me for doing so. That clerk is protected by layers of political BS and you'd have to prove GROSS FORGERY to get any action.

There shouldn't be any profit involved

[Nemilar]

It seems to me that she wouldn't be complaining if the $8 she charged for paper copies was only to cover distribution and reproduction costs. The fact that she tried to charge $8 per map for a digital copy makes it obvious that she's trying to turn an extra buck on what is, quite obviously, information that should be public and available for anyone interested.

Like the article says, taxation should be a transparent process. This isn't in any way similar to the argument over physical music costs vs. digital downloads; this is something where profits shouldn't be involved at all. And if they truly weren't, she would have no problem publishing them on the internet for free (or only a nominal cost to cover bandwidth and hosting, which really should be included in taxes since it's a public service available for all; 0.0025$ per resident per year should be more than enough to cover it).

Re:There shouldn't be any profit involved

[aspx]

I paid for the information when I paid my taxes. If they charge me a quarter dollar to copy a page, they make profit.

Are these people aware of my $50 government bullshit fee?

Re:There shouldn't be any profit involved

[sumdumass]

I think the problem is that the information is always availible at the records office or engineering department. You could still come in and view them for free and get a hard copy for probably the $8.

When digital came about, they probably started loosing money (revenue income) and carried the copy fee over to all copies. A lot of county engineering departments across the country use a portion of the copying costs to supplement their budgets. This is probable why she is fighting the putting them on line. IT would mean even less people pay for the services.

However right or wrong that might be when it is public information or record is up to whoever is judging it. I know a lot of government offices started charging fees to get around lack of tax revenues and budget problems. In my home town, it went from $125 for an engineering and zoning approval to open a business to almost $500. SO it is obvious that governments are attempting to cover more then actual costs if you ask me. It seems to piss off less people then raising taxes so they will get away with it unless someone sues like with WV.

Re:There shouldn't be any profit involved

[Albanach]

The fact they want to charge suggests you probably didn't pay for this information when you paid your taxes. They're trying to recoup costs through the charge.

Local government doesn't exactly run at a profit. If they are forced to stop charging by law, or find they have no sales due to the data being freely available on the internet you'll find that lost income has to be recouped - then you'll be paying for it through your taxes.

Please note, I'm not suggesting the data shouldn't be free on the internet, just pointing out that in the past they probably helped cover the cost through paper sales and if/when that changes the money will have to come from somewhere else.

Re:There shouldn't be any profit involved

[code0]

FWIW, I work for IT in a small county...

Our assessor publishes this information online. You can get maps, ownership information, and tax information (except for a few properties). We just don't publish this in a machine readable format. If someone wants a dump of all the data, we point them to the website. While the information is public, there is no requirement for the government to provide it in whatever format a user wants.

Re:There shouldn't be any profit involved

[xSauronx]

Reminds me of criminal records in North Carolina. Want a statewide record search for yourself to take to an employer (some require proof of a clean record)? $15 for a copy that takes 10 seconds to pull up. Want a handgun permit? $3 for the processing, wherein the county sheriff department run a criminal record check and are required by law to contact at least 2 references before approving the permit.

Re:There shouldn't be any profit involved

[Anonymous Coward]

Oddly enough, there are cases (in the U.S.) where private companies have sued to prevent the government from providing data (e.g. aviation and marine charts, topographic maps, satellite imagery) for free (or for small fees). The theory behind this is that the government is not supposed to be competing with private industry (because the gov't is subsidized by taxes).

Re:There shouldn't be any profit involved

[Jesus_666]

So it would be better to get a handgun permit and take that to the employer?

Re:There shouldn't be any profit involved

[calebt3]

Better is a matter of opinion (especially your opinion of the near future). Certainly cheaper, though.

Re:There shouldn't be any profit involved

[walt-sjc]

In my state, there IS a requirement under the "Freedom of Access" laws that any and all public information requested must be provided (with a very few exceptions for confidential data.) If the request is beyond a simple dump, the office is allowed to recover the costs of preparing the data. Under this law, I was able to get a database dump of the entire GIS system data on a DVD for $25. And I like that. It allowed me access to tax information and comps to prove that I was being over assessed and get my property tax bill lowered by $1000 / year. Just pointing me at the website would not give me the information I need. Refusing the dump would be illegal under our FOA law.

Re:There shouldn't be any profit involved

[cayenne8]

"Want a handgun permit?"

Where do you live that you have to have a permit to own a handgun?? That's a state I'd like to avoid. Do you also have to register your weapons with the state govt too?

Re:There shouldn't be any profit involved

[aevans]

Almost everyone employed by local governments live in houses, eat food, and yes drive cars. That means that the government is making a profit. The idea of self-perpetuating government is as popular as perpetual motion machines these days.

Re:There shouldn't be any profit involved

[Albanach]

You seem to have a very confused idea of profit. Most organisations would consider staffing costs an expense, not a measure of profit.

Re:There shouldn't be any profit involved

[sumdumass]

NYC used to require every handgun to be registered which they would then give you a permit stating it had been registered.

But without knowing him personally, I'm going to assume that he was talking about a concealed carry permit. Where I live, it is like that for the concealed carry, and you are only allowed to carry guns you qualified on and registered as your CC side arm. My understanding is that this is pretty much in every state's CC laws (well not the prices).

Re:There shouldn't be any profit involved

[Sigma 7]

So it would be better to get a handgun permit and take that to the employer? I know that's a joke, but when I checked the application form for firearm permits (at least within my country), a criminal conviction doesn't disqualify you from obtaining such firearms.

Take a look at box 16 at http://www.cfc-cafc.gc.ca/online-en_ligne/form-assistance/PDFs/921_e.pdf

As far as they are concerned, the application form wants to ensure that you aren't a hazard to other people. The boxes in question only ask about violent crimes, crimes involving firearms or drug trafficking. Also, the boxes also use the term "charged", which means that it involves cases of false accussations. Criminal record checks don't care about charges unless they are outstanding, and otherwise follow the alleged innocent-until-proven-guilty rule.

Re:There shouldn't be any profit involved

[torkus]

Sorry but I think you misunderstand. This information is public domain because the creation and gathering is paid for with PUBLIC FUNDS (aka taxes). The local gov't (or anyone else for that matter) can not SELL this information. The charge is a 'copying fee' meant to cover the cost of...well copying. They're not recouping costs on anything else (or technically they should not be as it's not legal to do so)

Personally I think things like 'copy fees' are yet another example of the failure of gov't in the US. Maybe when "xeroxing" something was complicated, tedious and expensive it might have warrented $0.25--$1 per page. Now with massive high-speed copiers (ha, often from xerox too!) and bulk sheet feeders the time and cost to copy 1000's of pages is minimal. Heck, even the medium-duty copiers we lease at work cost something at or under $0.01 per page. That lawyers, townships, or similar can charge, 25c, $1, or $8 PER PAGE for the 'expense' of copying is insanity.

Re:There shouldn't be any profit involved

[Albanach]

Sorry, either it is you who misunderstand or you missed the end of my post.

I did not try to judge on whether the data should be available or not - read the last sentence in my post. What I pointed out was that they clearly were selling this data and therefore recouping all or some of the costs through sales.

Without that income WV residents can expect to see more of their tax dollars going to the department in future than did in the past.

You say it was produced with PUBLIC FUNDS (your caps). Does that mean if the revenue from private sales covered the cost of production you would agree the data should continue to only be available on a commercial basis?

Re:There shouldn't be any profit involved

[torkus]

I addressed your point - they can not sell this data to recoup the costs of generating it in the first place.

Let me repeat that: They can not sell this data. By law, it MUST be freely available to the public.

If their budget is insufficient to create the data in the first place then their budget needs to be addressed. The government must function regardless of 'sales income'. Generating revenue from "sales" is dubious at best, illegal at worst. To directly answer your question - no. Revenue from private or commercial sales (which are illegal) should NOT be used to fund production. Besides which, tax rolls and maps have to be generated even if no one requests them. They're needed by the town/county/state for assessing property taxes.

Re:There shouldn't be any profit involved

[Z00L00K]

Why not? If having a handgun without a permit is a crime that can be punished by imprisonment even criminals will be out of circulation for a while just because they are caught with a handgun without permit.

Gun's are actually poor protection. If you want protection buy a bulletproof vest or a bodyguard. If you have a gun visible it's even likely that it can draw fire rather than repel by the "shoot first ask later" consideration.

Re:There shouldn't be any profit involved

[Albanach]

I'd love to see the sections of the WV code that say a) the state government cannot provide commercial services (are the WV rest area vending machines run at cost?) and also the code that states that everything produced with state funds is in the public domain? I know there's a federal statute, but this is about WV after all.

Re:There shouldn't be any profit involved

[torkus]

Actually those vending machines are probably contracted out and a 'license fee' or % tax chaged on the profit made. There are some very fine and shakey lines regarding things like this. I don't think it's WV law, I'm fairly certain this is federally mandated and it makes sense for many reasons.

As for your other question: The government can not hold copyright. Poke the copyright laws. Therefore any document created is either 1) public domain and available to all 2) public domain but with private information and thus controlled according to defined privacy law 3) classified with restricted availability.

FIOA has more details though i'm not likely to read more gov't law drivel for amusement that I have to :) If above weren't true, explain how FIOA works and why it exists.

Where's the same?

[Nemilar]

It takes one kind of person to abuse their position as a public official to turn a quick buck (we call these people politicians). But then, once your scam doesn't work anymore, you sue - and not even under some pretense of fairness with a hidden (yet, most likely obvious) motive - but blatantly sue for financial loss? That's corruption at its worst.

Re:Where's the same?

[likes2comment]

She needs to go back to making babies with her cousin in WV.

Freedom of Information

[$random_var]

29B-1-3. Inspection and copying.
(1) Every person has a right to inspect or copy any public record of a public body in this state, except as otherwise expressly provided by section four of this article. ..
(3) The custodian of any public records, unless otherwise expressly provided by statute, shall furnish proper and reasonable opportunities for inspection and examination of the records in his or her office and reasonable facilities for making memoranda or abstracts therefrom, during the usual business hours, to all persons having occasion to make examination of them. The custodian of the records may make reasonable rules and regulations necessary for the protection of the records and to prevent interference with the regular discharge of his or her duties. If the records requested exist in magnetic, electronic or computer form, the custodian of the records shall make such copies available on magnetic or electronic media, if so requested.

http://www.legis.state.wv.us/WVCODE/29B/masterfrmFrm.htm

I don't believe the assessor can reasonably claim financial damage... generally copying fees are limited to nominal processing costs, or a close approximation thereof, and only in a few cases around the country have I ever heard of a government treating copying fees as a profit center... and those were only for specialized documents such as police reports being furnished to an insurance company.

This is such a backwards way of thinking. I work for a software company that is involved in document management, and everywhere we look, cities, counties, and states are looking to pass the savings on to their citizens, not trying to nickel and dime their way into mediocrity. The tax assessor's office's budget can always be fixed if they truly are relying on those $20 fees. Even those organizations that do make some money off supplying documents are constantly trying to improve access and let people access documents online and so on.

Re:Freedom of Information

[mangu]

only in a few cases around the country have I ever heard of a government treating copying fees as a profit center... and those were only for specialized documents such as police reports being furnished to an insurance company

I don't see why this case should be treated differently. Why are they charging insurance companies? If the records are public, they are public, no matter who's getting them.

Re:Freedom of Information

[$random_var]

Hm, well you're right in principle but it's hard to apply those principles sometimes! I think the idea is that the insurance company is turning a profit, and they rely on these police reports, which are expensive to produce and really only apply to one-ish citizen and this for-profit company. When you have a gap in the budget it's easy to get people to agree to fill it with a source like this. Everybody loves to hate an insurance company. Plus, this could also be "congestion pricing" in a manner of speaking... it means that the insurance companies will not use up valuable city resources unless the actual value to the insurance company is more than the cost of the report.

Re:Freedom of Information

[arivanov]

and only in a few cases around the country have I ever heard of a government treating copying fees as a profit center...

This means the USA has a lot to learn from the UK. It is an ongoing profitable business over here. DVLA records, electoral register, land registry data, ordnance survey data, you name it. Everything is for sale and everything is for a profit. Privacy? Yeah, we heard about it. A person with a criminal record till last year could obtain anyone's details (provided that they own a vehicle) for mere 5 quid. Checks? What checks. Provided that the buyer pays the price checks should not get into the way of government officials conducting business ya know.

Re:Freedom of Information

[sinthetek]

Does this legislature apply to entities such as DMV and Criminal court clerk as well? Is it pretty much the same in all states? Currently it costs several dollars to get a copy of driving record. Background checks are more. Prices for both vary depending on time frame. It seems such info should be publicly available and fall within the realms of this act as well

Re:Freedom of Information

[$random_var]

I am not too familiar with how it varies from state to state - but I do know that there is booming business in helping make public records more accessible. After all, in this day and age it seems counterintuitive that public records should be kept on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of The Leopard". You can find more information about state FOI laws here.

Re:Freedom of Information

[mangu]

Everybody loves to hate an insurance company

Raise their costs and they will pass it to the customer, plus tax and profits. Lower their costs and more companies will enter the market, with better services and lower prices.

Re:Freedom of Information

[Anonymous Coward]

This is such a backwards way of thinking

Well, it is West Virgina after all. The geneological record of the whole state fits on one page.

Re:Freedom of Information

[whatme]

Public in this case is interpreted as public the a person. A company is NOT a person. The CEO could walk in and request the information and they will give it to him/her...one at a time. What happens is companies request the entire database. So there is a fee involved. I don't have a problem with that as it falls outside of what an individual would normally request.

Re:Freedom of Information

[Ironsides]

I don't know where you live, but last time I got a background check in Virginia, I had to have my fingerprints taken. A good chunk of the background process is running your fingerprints through a database or two to see what comes up. They do this as people with same/similar names do occur. Now, there are several things in this process that cost money. The time for the person who takes the prints, the machine for taking the prints and the computer that compares the prints. Comparing a fingerprint to however many thousands/millions are on record takes a good chunk of computing power, especially when you have a lot every day to compare. That means money for upkeep and upgrades.

Basically, the process costs the state money, that is not funded from outside sources, and so should not be free. However, that doesn't mean I support it being a huge profit making venture for the state either. FOIA allows for the charging of the cost of pulling up the information. So, shall we say I believe in charging about cost for the info?

Re:Freedom of Information

[0100010001010011]

A company IS a person. That's the whole purpose of a corporation. "A corporation is a legal entity (technically, a juristic person) which has a separate legal personality from its members." That's the whole point of a corporation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood_debate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation

Also the movie "The Corporation."

Re:Freedom of Information

[celle]

Better find out if she pocketing the cash. Even if she isn't, I'm sure she broke the law and at minimum should be fired regardless.

Re:Freedom of Information

[celle]

Wow, forget soap, ballot, jury, you guys just seem to need the ammo box and soon or you will be completely neutered.

Re:Freedom of Information

[LrdDimwit]

Furthermore, mere collections of facts as such are not copyrightable. If you make a list of facts, you can get copyright on the form of the list (usually, there's a test that basically boils down to "did you expend actual effort creating this list").

You cannot copyright 2+2=4, you cannot copyright mathematical formulae (but you can copyright the book in which they appear), and most definitely a map showing which area has what taxes is not protectable by copyright.

Re:Freedom of Information

[jyjjy]

Not sure why you quoted that. No one is trying to deny anyone access to public records, just to charge for it.
If anything this sentence;
"The custodian of the records may make reasonable rules and regulations necessary for the protection of the records and to prevent interference with the regular discharge of his or her duties."
could be interpreted as meaning a fee is totally valid if not charging would cripple the budget of the office distributing the records.

Re:Freedom of Information

[Anonymous Coward]

Quote the whole text,

Section 4 and 5 are so much more interesting.

(4) All requests for information must state with reasonable specificity the information sought. The custodian, upon demand for records made under this statute, shall as soon as is practicable but within a maximum of five days not including Saturdays, Sundays or legal holidays:
(a) Furnish copies of the requested information;
(b) Advise the person making the request of the time and place at which he or she may inspect and copy the materials; or
(c) Deny the request stating in writing the reasons for such denial.
Such a denial shall indicate that the responsibility of the custodian of any public records or public body to produce the requested records or documents is at an end, and shall afford the person requesting them the opportunity to institute proceedings for injunctive or declaratory relief in the circuit court in the county where the public record is kept.

(5) The public body may establish fees reasonably calculated to reimburse it for its actual cost in making reproductions of such records.

Five's my favourite. but 4c is pretty cool too.

Re:Freedom of Information

[torkus]

And further, corporations pay taxes. Taxes that pay for gov't functions (such as assessing and documenting taxes) so they're just as entitled as you or I.

In general insurance companies, lawyers and the like don't complain about these fees. Why? Because 1) they can write it of as expense and 2) they do the same thing when someone wants their documents so they don't want to rock the boat.

Re:Freedom of Information

[Dun Malg]

Raise their costs and they will pass it to the customer, plus tax and profits. Lower their costs and more companies will enter the market, with better services and lower prices.
Please. The cost of paying for huge stacks of public records is infinitesimal compared to the total cost of running an insurance business. The taxpayer picking up the tab for their requests for public information would certainly not result in "more companies,... with better services and lower prices." That's like saying that if egg ranchers lowered their prices by 10 cents per dozen, we'd have a Denny's on every corner selling a five-egg breakfast for a dollar.

Re:Freedom of Information

[sinthetek]

Well, "background check" may have been the wrong term to use, I'm not sure; perhaps "criminal history check" is what I mean? It usually just involves the local courthouse checking the computer and print out whatever is there with your name, dob and ssn. They didn't take my fingerprints or anything like that. I have, however, had job recruiters perform background checks on me a couple of times in the last couple of years... none of them required fingerprints or anything either. Is your state onboard with RealID? Maybe they just want an excuse to catalog everyone's fingerprints (which is what i suspect). Until fairly recently only felons had their fingerprints taken. Now they want everyone's fingerprints at birth :\

Re:Freedom of Information

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything is for sale and everything is for a profit.

It sure as shit isn't helping your own people.

There is a very fine program called JTides which makes tidal predictions. The author made a fortune early on, writing commercial software. He no longer needs to make money, so has written a number of programs which he dispenses for free. JTides is one of these. It depends on data collected by national governments regarding various topographical conditions and measurements made in their waters.

Early editions of the program included this data for not-so-Great Britain. Then they clamped down and declared the data to be "Crown Property" (a haughty little phrase that roughly means the same as "a dog pissing on all the rocks in its territory"). Consequently the author added a notification in his program saying that GB tide predictions would no longer be coming from his program as he was unwilling to pay "The Crown" for data to be used in a free program.

Nice going, Bitch Elizabeth.

By the way, check out his free wares at http://www.arachnoid.com/ -- select one of the Careware links on the left. It's very worthwhile, well-written stuff.

Re:Freedom of Information

[Ironsides]

Virginia. It is not doing anything with RealID. Anyone who works with county government has had their fingerprints taken to compare to the database when they first signed up and the state has been doing this for well over a decade. The fingerprints are tossed when they're through with them.

Either way, the checks are still using resources of some sort that need to be paid for and maintained and cost money.

Until fairly recently only felons had their fingerprints taken.

Actually, it was anyone who was 'booked', not just felons. This would include misdemeanors.

Obvious Web 2.0 solution to the revenue loss

[z-j-y]

put contextual ads on those maps.

Small fish in even smaller ponds - local gov ftl

[Anonymous Coward]

You've seen it, I've seen it - we all have: local-government's small fish. The things some of these people rationalize in their small ponds - especially when prompted emotion or greed - are just mind-boggling when viewed *from outside the situation*. This lady is a throwback that, sorry, needs to be thrown back into the general population and be replaced =/

Ot : The title

[4D6963]

Just wondering, am I the only one stupid enough to think it had to be about Volkswagen upon reading the title? I'm worried.. :-/

Re:Ot : The title

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you mean Wagenvölker.

Re:Ot : The title

[cjsm]

Well, if you read WV as VW it means your dyslexic.

Re:Ot : The title

[4D6963]

Well, if you read WV as VW it means your dyslexic.

I'm actually dysgraphic but anyways it's close enough, I mean it's two short waves and one large wave instead of one large wave and two short waves, plus the logo of Volkswagen is a V on top of a W, and the W is larger, so it's kind of up to you to decide which is more important than the other.. :-)

Re:Ot : The title

[david@ecsd.com]

Or he needs to use a different font.

Re:Ot : The title

[DMUTPeregrine]

Interesting. I too am disgraphic and I made the same mistake.

Make these bitches give us INFORMATION, FREELY

[dj42]

I am tired of this government that the U.S. continues to perpetuate. If these dipshits are unwilling to satisfy public will, they ought to be stripped of all responsibilities and held up in the public eye as examples of FAILED public service.

The public is what gives them power, and if they seek not to comply reasonably, they ought to be stripped of that power one magnitude greater than their infraction, to remind them who is putting them in charge.

This is not a business or a company. These people are there at our whim. When they fail to provide us with what they want, they ought to be ran out of office, and sent back to public life with the fury of thousands of people accompanying them.

Re:Make these bitches give us INFORMATION, FREELY

[Skapare]

I'll let you figure out how to do this, in the role of a county tax assessor.

Before automatic reproduction equipment came along, you could not even have a copy of the map unless you paid a map maker to hand create a copy. That would be half a day effort for just one sectional map. The cost: half a day's wages. Want the entire county? Several weeks wages.

Along comes photo copy machinery. But this isn't cheap because the maps are huge. Even in 2008 this means investing a huge sum of money for the specialized (and hence, no economy of scale which means very expensive) equipment needed to make the copies.

Now you are a tax assessor. You don't have the budget to just buy the equipment. So your office has to take out a loan to buy it, to be paid back through the sale of copies. This is in no way a profit operation, as all the money collected for copies goes to pay off the loan. Now consider that along comes the internet and suddenly no one wants your paper copies anymore. But you're stuck with a big piece of equipment no one else has any use for, and a loan that still needs to be paid off.

I'm sure part of that money, especially after the loan is paid off, ends up supplementing the office operation itself. But that's actually typical for a great many government operations, where the routine servicing needs of a very small segment of the population has to be paid for by those that use it. A tax assessor general operation probably should not qualify for this since the general operation affects all property owners and potential buyers and a few lawyers with property cases ongoing. But it is not that far out of line, as $8 for a copy of a large sheet at 3 feet by 2 feet and larger is close to the real cost considering things like the special equipment and handling needed.

Re:Make these bitches give us INFORMATION, FREELY

[ultima]

Wait, are you implying that people who work for the government might be self-serving parasites?

By making this information available for free, those people who made a living by reproducing it are being put out of a job. And government jobs often attract the kind of people who would are just not adaptable enough to find a new job. So of course they are going to fight this -- because accepting it means they would have to change, and change is hard.

Re:Make these bitches give us INFORMATION, FREELY

[Brannoncyll]

A very sad story, my small violin is being played as i type.

However, most companies/organisations are having to adapt to the digital age, and most do it without too much complaint (with notable exceptions). Abusing the legal system because your company didn't have the foresight to predict the rise of the Internet is not a good way of dealing with things.

Re:Make these bitches give us INFORMATION, FREELY

[Anonymous Coward]

> Now consider that along comes the internet and suddenly no one wants your paper copies anymore. But you're stuck with a big piece of equipment no one else has any use for, and a loan that still needs to be paid off.

In business, you sell the equipment, declare bankruptcy, and your creditors (the people who loaned you the money) have to suck it up and eat the loss.

In government, you sell the equipment, shut down the paper-copying department and migrate the entire thing to the Internet. Since you probably don't want to shut down the entire municipal government, you pay the loan off, and the taxpayers (the people who pay the loan) have to suck it up and eat the loss. A few years later, the loan's paid off, and everyone has free-as-in-beer access to the much cheaper-to-operate Intertube version.

> But it is not that far out of line, as $8 for a copy of a large sheet at 3 feet by 2 feet and larger is close to the real cost considering things like the special equipment and handling needed.

True. So -- ask the public. Would they like to pay $8 minimum (and maybe going to $20 or $50+ if demand dries up, because the cost of overhead doesn't go down as the number of customers drops) for dead-tree versions of the data, or $0.0x for the Intertube versions of the same data? Of course, that's assuming your interest as the tax assessor is to provide a public service, not to keep your buddies in cushy jobs where they don't have to adapt to changing technologies.

Re:Make these bitches give us INFORMATION, FREELY

[Anonymous Coward]

In this case, the expense of the equipment to the people (indirectly via taxes) is fully justified by making government more accessible, something that IMHO should be a driving principle of as much of the government as can be safely made transparent (i.e. not classified info, etc.) There should be money allocated explicitly for this purpose - public eyeballs on the government's behavior would probably provide enough in improved efficiency all by itself.

Re:Make these bitches give us INFORMATION, FREELY

[Anonymous Coward]

It's 2008. You should stop thinking that the internet is some shocking new development. It should have been obvious for at least ten years that electronic distribution was going to be the way of the future. If they took out a loan which requires more than ten years to pay off, that was just bad planning. If they didn't, that means they bought it more recently, meaning they took out a loan to buy a piece of equipment which anyone should have realized was going to become obsolecent shortly.

They should have realized that the internet was going to change how things work, and planned for it. They could have been on the leading edge. Instead they're sticking to their ways long after it's become ridiculous, and trying to restrict the flow of what is supposed to be public information just so they can try to make up for lost revenue.

Imagine if it were legal to distribute any music over the internet, but the RIAA still tried to shut down file sharing. That's basically the situation these people are in. Just because you made some bad choices and need money doesn't give you the right to get a piece of the action for every digital copy made.

Re:Make these bitches give us INFORMATION, FREELY

[dj42]

ROFL. People in the government aren't ever "put of a job" by creating public information... that's WHAT THEY ARE PAID FOR.

Re:Make these bitches give us INFORMATION, FREELY

[Anonymous Coward]

Apart from the fact the citizens were dumb enough to elect someone that (eventually, far down the line) employed someone stupid enough not to either lease, or lease-to-own, specialized equipment that may one day be rendered useless, is it fair that we stop progress?

Just dig into the tax coffers to pay off the loan, sell the machine, and fire the idiot that didn't lease it.

podunk speed tr...er, "rent seekers"

[harvey the nerd]

Given the funky West virginia law, I would keep my server and business centers out of WV and ignore everything else. As for the quality of the WV tax assessor's argument, it reminds me of this little incorporated town that consisted of 4 miles of empty interstate only, a speed trap, and a post office box in another town... don't bother to pay, the state ignores them, too.

Hey guy -- they did!

[stomv]

"The government" is not represented by a single assessor in West Virginia. Perhaps you noticed that the judge [also a member of "the government"] required that they be handed over for a very small fee.

Why not free? I'll tell you why: if I were pissed off at a department in my town, I could just stroll in and request everything. Flood them with requests for information. It takes time to gather all of that information and fill the requests, and that takes away from the other duties those employees must attend. Placing a nominal fee serves to significantly reduce the action of those who seek simply to waste time, but doesn't serve as a substantial burden to those who want the information for productive purposes.

Finally, given that this is being settled in the judicial system, your call for angry mobs is more than a bit premature.

Re:Hey guy -- they did!

[likes2comment]

certain 'millionaires' and college classes have done that. Just simply said let's get donations, etc and spend a couple of thousand dollars on requests for copies of everything, just to tie up city hall.

Re:Hey guy -- they did!

[celle]

These service are paid for by our taxes and guaranteed by law, hence we should be able to walk in an waste as much time as we want since we have already paid for it. Angry mobs should have already happened since if the little fish think they can do it, then it means they learned from the big fish that have been doing forever and we have become indifferent too. We need to kill the spread of this.

How come when its a minor official its corruption and when Hilary or Barrak or McCain do it it's politics?

Re:Hey guy -- they did!

[Dachannien]

That's just the thing - you haven't already paid for it. They pay people in these offices to do their jobs, and when you walk in and say, "Yeah, I'll have one of everything, please," that person's time is diverted from whatever else they were doing so that they can make copies for you (which also requires copier toner and paper, inflicts wear on the copier/maps/deed books (some of which can be quite old)/etc.). Your tax dollars pay to run the office in general and make those records available for public perusal, but copying is extra and is (quite appropriately) charged separately so that we're not all paying the tax bill for your wasteful indiscretion.

Re:Hey guy -- they did!

[Fulcrum of Evil]

if I were pissed off at a department in my town, I could just stroll in and request everything. Flood them with requests for information

I'd just throw it on a computer and tell you to knock yourself out.

Re:Hey guy -- they did!

[sumdumass]

I've heard stories about that happening.

Sadly, they typically come from disgruntled people who claim the government offices are slow, unresponsive to the publics needs, and wasteful among other things. Then they act like requesting everything will teach them somehow. Sort of like buying every piece of merchandise or music in sight so they can burn it in protest of something the people selling the stuff said or did. Yea, punish me by buying my inventory out and then destroying it.

I guess people just don't think things through clearly when they are pissed off.

Protection of investment

[Skapare]

Normally, the copying should not be a profit operation. However, this copying is a big part of what such an office does. That requires some equipment investment. And these are not small 8.5x11 sheets that typical copying equipment can serve. I've been to one of these offices in a West Virginia county, before, and these are on the order of 3x2 feet in size for the original paper copy. To some extent, the concern may be to protect that investment in reproduction equipment that could go underutilized if the maps go online.

But the world is changing. I should be able to click on "tax map" on my GPS equipped phone and have it automatically pull up the map of where I am standing, and overlay that with a satellite/aerial photo view, with names and addresses from the phone book, etc. I should not have to make a trip down to the county tax assessor just so they can pay off an antiquated copy machine due to their inability to assess the pace of technology development.

These maps are not accurate in terms of exact positioning. The assessment information is official, but the land shape and position is merely for identification purposes, only. Ironically, however, this very technology could also help make such maps much more accurate. Integrated with standardized survey data and low level aerial photos, and the assessments can be much more accurate in terms of things like valuation.

Re:Protection of investment

[CowTipperGore]

That requires some equipment investment. And these are not small 8.5x11 sheets that typical copying equipment can serve. I've been to one of these offices in a West Virginia county, before, and these are on the order of 3x2 feet in size for the original paper copy. To some extent, the concern may be to protect that investment in reproduction equipment that could go underutilized if the maps go online. Perhaps some offices make available the larger maps, but I've gotten copies of tax maps from several WV counties and they don't give me a large copy nor do they even use the original large maps any longer. They provide an 8.5x11 or 8.5x14 printout from their digital source, just like I can get from Seneca's online site.

But the world is changing. I should be able to click on "tax map" on my GPS equipped phone and have it automatically pull up the map of where I am standing, and overlay that with a satellite/aerial photo view, with names and addresses from the phone book, etc. I should not have to make a trip down to the county tax assessor just so they can pay off an antiquated copy machine due to their inability to assess the pace of technology development.

These maps are not accurate in terms of exact positioning. The assessment information is official, but the land shape and position is merely for identification purposes, only. Ironically, however, this very technology could also help make such maps much more accurate. Integrated with standardized survey data and low level aerial photos, and the assessments can be much more accurate in terms of things like valuation.

And now you've hit on why the county is fighting this move. Some county maps are so in accurate that they are almost useless while other counties have taken the time to create nice maps. For example, Lincoln county, WV, where county offices such as the Assessor were treated as lifetime appointments from the local political bosses, the maps are terrible and this will suddenly be obvious to everyone. And, because Seneca wants to combine the maps with other public data such as ownership and assessment data, many people at the courthouses will find themselves with even less to do. Most importantly, and most frightening to the local powerbrokers, this will allow everyone to see how the local assessment process is used to grant millions of dollars to the owners of huge swaths of timber and mineral rights, who often are significantly and intentionally undertaxed for decades.

Re:Protection of investment

[Just Some Guy]

To some extent, the concern may be to protect that investment in reproduction equipment that could go underutilized if the maps go online.

But if they can be digitally redistributed for free (as they are here - someone else is even picking up the bandwidth tab), then that equipment can be reassigned where it's really needed or sold. They don't get to justify maintaining expensive equipment forever simply because it's expensive.

Re:Protection of investment

[Ironsides]

Most importantly, and most frightening to the local powerbrokers, this will allow everyone to see how the local assessment process is used to grant millions of dollars to the owners of huge swaths of timber and mineral rights, who often are significantly and intentionally undertaxed for decades.

You got a link to back this up? Or should I just file it under baseless accusation?

Re:Protection of investment

[wiredlogic]

The city I live in provides all that for free (minus the GPS connectivity). They have their GIS online and you can select any plot of land to see data on it. What it's assessed value is, when was it last sold and for how much, whether the owner has paid their taxes or water bill, it's all there where it should be.

Re:Protection of investment

[CowTipperGore]

You got a link to back this up? Or should I just file it under baseless accusation? I haven't bothered to Google it, if that's what you mean. Feel free to do so yourself.

To those who grew up in these fiefdoms, a link to a Wikipedia article isn't necessary. I'm sure you can find articles about Lincoln County's Assessor of 25 years recently going to federal prison for his involvement in the long-standing county-wide voting buying programs. This corruption was well-known to locals for decades but you wouldn't have found an online news report about it before last year. A coal company also took Webster County all the way to the US Supreme Court over the county's refusal to assess many coal holdings at anywhere near the level of the those of a few owners.

Re:Protection of investment

[Dachannien]

The level of accuracy varies wildly, dependent upon who's drawing the maps and when they were drawn. I took one of the aforementioned Kanawha County, WV, maps to do some actual research (not just for fun, but possibly for legal purposes, so I'm really glad this company put them online) and overlaid it on top of a Google map of the area (okay, this part was for fun, since I know the maps aren't meant to be used in this regard). I got all four corners to line up pretty well with the underlying terrain, and most of the rest of the map lined up as well, but the stuff I was really interested was off by a few hundred yards (in particular, some old rights-of-way that were never more than poorly-maintained dirt roads) are way off from their actual location). This was probably because the last time that land was surveyed was probably as part of the execution of a will in the 1940s to 1960s sometime, probably done on the cheap, and since then, all of the subdivided parcels were bought up by the same person, so there's been no survey to correct the issue.

As you say, not accurate. But still fun (by which I mean "nerd fun" ;) ).

Re:Protection of investment

[sumdumass]

They wont get rid of the plotters because there is a need for it regardless of where you get your maps. Land owners typically need entire plats drawn out so they can file for zoning and whatever as well as contest assessments and other people's planned improvements.

The country/city engineers department (road/street department) typically needs to get copies, make alterations, refile, and so on. The landowners, after they (either themselves or by paying someone else) make changes, will want copies when turning them back in.

And they just don't make a computer display large enough, flexible enough, and available enough to replace the large plotter images when collaboration and review is needed. They will need to keep the machines and maintain them regardless of digital files or their availability.

I do work at a country engineers office which uses the plotters. They usually range from 36" roles of paper up to 44 inches wide. You can get smaller rolls and larger is your plotter supports it. I have seen them as large as 56 inches wide at an advertising and promotional outfit. The rolls of paper are typically 150 feet long. Then you need a scanner/copier that can handle paper that large too. If course the scanner needs a server to scan too and it is a good idea to not used the login and file server because scanning can bring the system to a real slowdown really fast. These are situations where digital files will aid in the maintaining of the information and keeping it accurate but it won't replace older equipment like you would think of when going paperless. It just can't happen.

Defending the State

[tjstork]

Everyone here seems to be jumping on the state of West Virginia because they had the gall to go and create a work, with tax dollars and try to recoup some of that investment.

Look at the company that is actually suing to get government records for free!

They are creating a system using publicly funded tax records, that is for profit, and even worse, ultimately going to be used to enable corporate spying on the American people. While you think the government should just hand over all of its digital data for $20, I think it is absurd that a well financed and well capitalized corporation cannot pay a few hundred thousand dollars for data that it is going to make millions on.

You are all right, this is an outrage. It is an outrage that a corporation can completely steal from the state in the name of commerce.

What we're looking at here is the looting of America, and unless you think that your job being sent over to India is a good side effect of trickle-down-economics, we need to rethink who is better, the investor, or the inventor, the shareholder, or the citizen. I for one am sick of our race to the bottom economic system let's-gut-america so that a bunch of people can take that money and lobby congress to do it -even more-.

When is this shit going to end!

If all of these people that we trade with around the world were so good as to be able to even remotely tolerate the massive disruption to American jobs that free trade brings, I would think they would be with the United States in Iraq. But they aren't, so screw them.

Re:Defending the State

[FroBugg]

The information in question is information that ordinary people need to have access to. These people have already paid their state taxes to fund the collection of this data, and they should be allowed to see and use it. You can't say that ordinary people can get it for free but corporations (which, technically, have many of the rights of individual people) have to pay.

Re:Defending the State

[tjstork]

You can't say that ordinary people can get it for free but corporations (which, technically, have many of the rights of individual people) have to pay.

Sure I can. Corporations are not people.

Re:Defending the State

[Registered Coward v2]

Everyone here seems to be jumping on the state of West Virginia because they had the gall to go and create a work, with tax dollars and try to recoup some of that investment.

The key is with tax dollars - which means taxpayers already paid for the information and now are getting charged a second time for something they could 9and by WVA law should) make available electronically for free or nearly free.

Look at the company that is actually suing to get government records for free!

RTFA - it sued to only pay a reasonable copying cost, not what the state demanded. Winning that is a win for all taxpayers seeking public records. WVA wants to prevent them from making the data available in order to protect their revenue stream.

They are creating a system using publicly funded tax records, that is for profit, and even worse, ultimately going to be used to enable corporate spying on the American people. While you think the government should just hand over all of its digital data for $20, I think it is absurd that a well financed and well capitalized corporation cannot pay a few hundred thousand dollars for data that it is going to make millions on.

Because anyone else can get the same data for the same price; making money by adding value is no sin; it's a good thing.

We - the citizens - paid for that information through taxes, individual and corporate, and ought to have access to it to use as we see fit. If tax assessments were private records it would be a different story, but they aren't.

Re:Defending the State

[tjstork]

Because anyone else can get the same data for the same price; making money by adding value is no sin; it's a good thing.

So, since that company basically sued the state of West Virginia to get all of its data for $20, can I turn sue the company and get all of its data for, say, $20? That's where I'm coming from. If the information was so important, and so valuable, that you can make a billion dollar business with it, then, why is it so wrong for the state from which that information came from get a piece of the pie?

Re:Defending the State

[Registered Coward v2]

So, since that company basically sued the state of West Virginia to get all of its data for $20, can I turn sue the company and get all of its data for, say, $20?

Minor point - the company is giving the info from the state away. That's what is pissing off one tax assessor.

You should be able to get the whole set, from the state, for $20 under the FOIA.

That's where I'm coming from. If the information was so important, and so valuable, that you can make a billion dollar business with it, then, why is it so wrong for the state from which that information came from get a piece of the pie?

Because the state adds no value to the data - we've already, as taxpayers, paid for the compilation of that data. We should have access to, for what it actually costs to reproduce it. The data, in and of itself, is worth $20 - that's what it costs for anyone to get a copy (or free if Seneca wins); what's valuable is what you do with the data after words.

If someone has an idea on how to make it more valuable, then they should feel free to do it. If WVA wants a cut of the action, start a VC fund, invest in the company and shoulder the risk of failure to get a shot at the rewards.

This sounds like some tax assessor looked at their budget, realized they may lose some of it and is trying to use the courts to protect them.

Re:Defending the State

[celle]

Actually, corporations should be banned from providing this as its the pervue of the state. At least the companies should be required to provide info for free and only be allowed to charge for added services after getting that info to you.

Re:Defending the State

[portforward]

Please read the article. This not the "State of West Virginia" this is one county Assessor. Actually if you think about it, the West Virginia return on the investment of creating the map is probably ASTRONOMICAL. The map is created to generate tax revenue. The map's primary function is to tell the government how much to charge property owners for the privilege of owning property in the county. So don't I have the right to see what I pay in relationship to my neighbors, or the people on the other side of the tracks?

You mentioned in another thread that you wondered if you should be able to demand that information from the company for $20. Well, you have two options. 1) The company will give it to you for FREE or 2) you can buy the same map from the $20 from the state.

Plus, do you have time to drive down to the helpful, cheerful people down in the county courthouse to look up some maps during the day? They work for the government - they don't care how busy you are. Believe it or not, you can fire a corporation. The government can throw you in jail.

You then ramble on about India, looting of America, and the rights of citizens. Hey, I see a private company taking public sources of information, making them more accessible, cheaper, and combining them with other sources of information to make a better product. You see an excuse to go on some sort of rant.

Re:Defending the State

[celle]

What company have you ever used that provides public records for free? Every one I know charges you out the a?? for it. That's why I only get it from government sources, at least the ones that aren't trying to gouge you for it.

Re:Defending the State

[Registered Coward v2]

What company have you ever used that provides public records for free? Every one I know charges you out the a?? for it. That's why I only get it from government sources, at least the ones that aren't trying to gouge you for it.

According to the article the company that got the assessor records intends to make the files available for free for download; and charge for analysis / data mining.

Re:Defending the State

[Dachannien]

Plus, do you have time to drive down to the helpful, cheerful people down in the county courthouse to look up some maps during the day? They work for the government - they don't care how busy you are. Believe it or not, you can fire a corporation. The government can throw you in jail. Actually, one of the folks who works at the map room at the Kanawha County assessor's office really is a friendly guy. We chewed the fat one day last year when I was looking up some maps, and he related to me the story of an old deed they found one day that described a property boundary as, "Starting from a 1947 Ford..."

That said, having access to these maps online, as well as the county tax records (the county Sheriff actually has searchable tax records available online) has already saved me a ton of time.

Re:Defending the State

[BeanThere]

And it doesn't occur to you that keeping the price at hundreds of thousands of dollars will ENSURE that absolutely nobody *except* big corporations will be able to afford that data. Nice. How is that better? Big business actually *likes* barriers that make it harder for smaller players (man on the street) from being able to enter their markets, Einsten.

Re:Defending the State

[Anonymous Coward]

(which, technically, have many of the rights of individual people)

Actually, they have far more rights than ordinary people. Now that a corporation's only obligation (other than not explicitly breaking existing laws) is "to increase shareholder value", it has the power to do damned near anything. Even Jefferson foresaw what a danger corporations would become to the public interest.

As I'm not your paid tutor, you can look up the quotation yourself.

Re:OK, it's three things that are certain in life.

[robably]

Death, taxes, and lawsuits. So long as they come in that order, I don't mind.

As long as they are up to date ...

[Alain Williams]

and as accurate as those available directly from the WV Assessor, then the Assessor should take no interest. She can solve that easily by putting the map publication dates on the web.

paaardon?

[superwiz]

Governments can claim copyright? How? There are so many argument against it, I am not even sure where to start.

Re:paaardon?

[Xserv]

You're absolutely right. IANAL but I can think of no precedence where this would ever be appropriate.

Secondly, regardless of the fees that they charge for people to get copies of things in WV, I can't see how they'll lose that much money. West Virginia is in the bottom five of internet access speed availability in the United States (Sourced here. I don't think that many of the people in WV will do online retrieval of public records.

Down in Florida we have the Sunshine laws and we have about anything you want online.

Xserv

Re:paaardon?

[91degrees]

Actually, a lot of countries have copyright on public documents. Personally, I think all of them should be public domain but in practice it doesn't usually make a lot of difference.

Re:paaardon?

[superwiz]

Ok, well, in this the authorization for copyright laws comes from the recognizing the need to promote science and arts. Government documents are not even with an earshot of that standard.

Re:paaardon?

[Ironsides]

While internet to individual houses may be low, what do you want to be that most (all?) of the public libraries have internet? You know, those buildings containing these things called 'books', where most people went in the 90's to look up things on the internet. While this may seem quite archaic to you, there are many areas and people in the country that still use this method.

Re:paaardon?

[Xserv]

I was perusing back through topics I had posted to and saw that I missed a comment -- this one. I figure a response is in order.

While internet to individual houses may be low, what do you want to be that most (all?) of the public libraries have internet? You know, those buildings containing these things called 'books', where most people went in the 90's to look up things on the internet. While this may seem quite archaic to you, there are many areas and people in the country that still use this method.

I'm truly not sure what relevance your post has to mine but I'll try and comment accordingly.

You implied that maybe all of the libraries in the country have Internet access, think again. I have personally been to 2 towns in the Midwest this year that did not have Internet in their locations due to proximity to xDSL or other technologies... or in one case, "No one asks for it." The NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration) did a study of where people use the Internet and about 8.2% of people use it at a public library (Sourced: Here) And to clarify and make it pertinent to your comment about "most people in the 90s", the source is from the 90s. Those are real numbers.

Please do not insult my intelligence. I would quote one of those things "you call books" here on Slashdot but why reference something here that is impossible for those partaking to refrerence quickly. You know, the whole idea behind the "intarweb". Let me know how those forums are at the book dungeon.

Xserv

More of the same

[wolfbrother-t]

Same business model as the RIAA. Same response too.

WV genetics

[HangingChad]

Now a county tax assessor has filed a lawsuit trying to block the tax maps from being put online, claiming copyright infringement and financial damages

She just wasn't thinking big enough. She should have tried to claim copyright on the whole globe. Just think how much money should make on those royalties. That's more money than a fellar could make collecting aluminum cans his whole life.

And that, kids, is why cousins shouldn't get married.

Re:WV genetics

[Dachannien]

I knew the trolls would come out eventually. I'd just like you to know that another West Virginia county was thinking about this stuff early enough to pick up assessor.org.

Local Gov Perspective

[KayElle]

I'm the IT critter for a town in Mass and I manage the online stuff, including mapping. It's possible that the sales of copies are built into the decision about whether or not to update maps, do additional flyovers, and that sort of thing. I don't know about taxes in WV, but here in Mass local government is very very lean, and I can easily see someone in a similar fiscal dilemma deciding that the best way to pay for more frequent updating of mapping (which with flyovers and such is fairly pricey for a small town or county) is by generating revenue from the maps. Particularly as most of the users of mapping are businesses--this doesn't apply quite as much to tax maps, but our GIS layers are pretty expensive to produce and when 90% of your requests for GIS maps are from business who would otherwise need to do the survey work themselves, it's a fine line between public access and corporate welfare.

Also, having possibly out of date maps available in a central archive does kind of worry me. I'd rather have people getting them from us directly. Citizens have a habit of getting the wrong end of a stick on something and storming into town hall irate out of their minds over problems that don't really exist. I've had irate people in my office banging on the counter and screaming waving printouts of some web site somewhere they found that they thought was our official one. Part of managing a municipal website is trying to figure out ways in which information can be presented where citizens will not be confused and assume the worst and where it will be kept accurate and fresh.

Having said that, I agree with most of the people here. These are public records. All our GIS layers are on our website in addition to the ones that are on MassGIS, which includes a viewer. We're adding PDF'd tax maps as of our next update. Our property record cards are available online. I think and our town thinks these are records that should made as widely available as possible. But IMHO that's not the only legitimate way to look at things.

Re:Local Gov Perspective

[DAldredge]

How much would you charge for a complete digital copy of your maps? How much per page?

Re:Local Gov Perspective

[Taco Cowboy]

Of the things you said, the following catches my eyes:

"...but here in Mass local government is very very lean, ..."

Not that I want don't trust you, but when someone starts telling me a government, be it local, state, federal, or for the entire universe, be "very very lean" .... heh !

Re:Local Gov Perspective

[garcia]

Particularly as most of the users of mapping are businesses--this doesn't apply quite as much to tax maps, but our GIS layers are pretty expensive to produce and when 90% of your requests for GIS maps are from business who would otherwise need to do the survey work themselves, it's a fine line between public access and corporate welfare.

As long as the taxpayers can get it for free, I don't see how anyone can be concerned with it costing too much money to produce. I use a lot of the state's GIS data (park boundaries mostly) for geocaching. It's in a strange coordinate system that they use internally but using some open source software I am able to bring it over to WGS84 and then convert to KML/KMZ for Google Earth. This information isn't free from everyone, however, and while working with Dakota County (my county) to help them determine if they wanted a policy (I don't believe anyone needs a geocaching policy) to be developed, I asked for the GIS boundaries to help me see exactly how many geocaches were located within their park boundaries. Their GIS department doesn't release that information for free so I had to go about creating the boundaries myself using Google Earth and some other tools.

It's really unfortunate that as a taxpayer I am required to pay for something twice. I see your (and their) point to doing so as everyone wants to be fiscally conservative but when you're trying to do honest work, for those that have the data, it's a little silly not to let it go out.

Now, once you pay for it, it should be able to be freely released into the public domain especially if the laws governing that area permit it (and I'm sure they do).

Re:Local Gov Perspective

[Just Some Guy]

It's possible that the sales of copies are built into the decision about whether or not to update maps, do additional flyovers, and that sort of thing.

I'm asking because I'm ignorant of the workings of such agencies, but why would the gov't ever need to pay to have their maps updated? Do you have rogue developers laying out new subdivisions without telling you? It seems like part of the permit to build a road could include the cost of maintaining the official maps.

Re:Local Gov Perspective

[MurphyZero]

If it is businesses that are the prime users of your maps, then the taxes that support your operation should be assessed against businesses instead of citizens. If you need to do more flyovers to improve your products, raise the taxes against businesses. If they convince politicians that the taxes are excessive, don't do the flyovers. Every business gets a variety of taxes assessed against them, some benefit them, some don't. Overall the goal is an equitable distibution that supports everyone. This is true for personal taxes as well, even though some people don't have children they still pay school taxes. Likewise, even though this is the goal, in practice it could rarely be said to be equitable. But for that problem I blame the politicians, the people who vote for them, the people who stuff the ballots and the people who buy the politicians.

Re:Local Gov Perspective

[metamatic]

Also, having possibly out of date maps available in a central archive does kind of worry me. I'd rather have people getting them from us directly.

In which case, your only option is to make the data available via the web, for free or for a very small fee.

As soon as you try to make money reproducing something which is public (and which anyone else has the right to reproduce), someone else will step in and compete with you.

Re:Local Gov Perspective

[whatme]

Since several "small town" IT folks have commented, I'm surprised that people haven't mentioned the obvious true additional costs involved. While making out a CD may only "cost" $1 (for example), you still have to consider the infrastructure costs. The CD burner has to be purchased and maintained, the IT guy has to be paid to purchase and install it, the operator has to be trained in it's use, and the labor time of the duplication probably far exceeds the cost of the media. And this ignores things like bandwidth, server maintenance and backups as a percentage share of the use.

Anyone who has been in consulting knows that it's not just the 5-10 minutes on site, it's the time to get there, the cost of getting supplies, etc. It's not just the media cost for duplication when you're doing one-off requests.

For on-line servicing, many of the above costs are reduced, but the back end still exists and must be maintained. These are costs over and above what the gov agency would need to supply in the absence of the data request. Thus the cost of the copy is real. By using a point of use charge, you remove the local tax base from funding outside people getting the info.

Don't get me wrong, I use these data services as well. Around here (Chicago area), it's an every thre-year ritual to protest your property tax assessment increase. That used to require going to the local assessors office to get data. Now we can do it from home and more accurately/cheaply. But businesses try to get the stuff for "free" too. You still see service firms use full time people in the courthouses and tax offices "requesting" all the files and transcribing the content into laptops for inclusion into their corporate databases. If they can afford to pay people like this, there is obviously "value" to the company. Why should Joe Taxpayer fund that for them.

Re:Local Gov Perspective

[Murphy Murph]

I'm the IT critter for a town in Mass and I manage the online stuff, including mapping. It's possible that the sales of copies are built into the decision about whether or not to update maps, do additional flyovers, and that sort of thing

Whoa - this is about Tax Maps - Auditor's schematic record of parcel ownership - the visual index if you will. Aerial mapping is (in the states I have worked in as a surveyor) not a primary mission of the Auditor's office.

...when 90% of your requests for GIS maps are from business who would otherwise need to do the survey work themselves, it's a fine line between public access and corporate welfare.

GIS spatial data is not survey quality and does not carry the legal value a recorded survey does. Are the NGS quad sheets corporate welfare, or are they basic governmental infrastructure?

Let us save government-funded photogrammetry for another discussion. This is about tax maps. How else is someone to find the ownership info of a parcel of land based on geographic location? Tracking, recording, and assessing real-property is a primary mission of county government. There is no legitimate reason to impede the access to these public records.

Re:Local Gov Perspective

[kikta]

Particularly as most of the users of mapping are businesses--this doesn't apply quite as much to tax maps, but our GIS layers are pretty expensive to produce and when 90% of your requests for GIS maps are from business who would otherwise need to do the survey work themselves, it's a fine line between public access and corporate welfare. What's the problem? They pay taxes just like you and me - no, wait, they pay even higher rates. Should companies not get similar services to idividuals for their tax dollars as well?

Re:Local Gov Perspective

[Shadowlore]

Also, having possibly out of date maps available in a central archive does kind of worry me. I'd rather have people getting them from us directly.

And I'd like to be able to track changes over time. A properly indexed/identified map/db should suffice for both.

In no way ever should a government agency (aka: a group of people backed up by guns to do things other people are not allowed to do) should be doing anything for profit. Ever. It is never legitimate for an organization that gets to take money away from me against my will[1] then charges me to make a profit on the services it already taxed me for. You want to charge money? Fine, stop the taxes. Charge me for the services I use, and keep my choice to use the services optional. You want to profit? Be a private business, not a government agency.

Government used as a source of profit, in any endeavor, is a primary source of bloat, greed, stupid laws, usurpation of privacy and natural rights (see: England). Whether legal or not, plunder is wrong. (arr matey what ye be sayin'?) Taxation is merely legalized plunder. To then add to that by charging me for the "service" is yet more plunder. To then want to make a profit on top of that is beyond asinine plunder.

What this office is doing is asinine plunder.

Re:Local Gov Perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you! I'm also a local gov't IT critter (not in Mass, though) and there's a few things people don't take into account with situations like this.

First off, with the disclaimer that I don't know West Virgina law, the $8 fee for copying charged is probably written into state law, not something the appraiser is trying to "get" from people. Second, it's probably how her office is funded. In my state, that's exactly how it works--the idiots in the Legislature put in a mandatory charge for documents, then mandate that we put said documents online where we can't legally collect the charge that they mandated. So the mechanism that's supposed to fund the office, as dicated by somebody else is broken by those same people. Of course, they don't provide any money to replace the money that their actions take away, and we still have to run the infrastructure, which would be considerably cheaper to do if we didn't have to be concerned with all the stuff that goes with running a publicly available web server setup with access to back-end systems that include not only public data but also things that are by law secret. Security is a lot more fun in this kind of setup than most people think.

Second, corporations abuse public records all the time. When I say "abuse", I mean "use in a manner not intended by the people". For example, property records serve a valuable purpose in the buying and selling of property. They're also the reason everybody gets 10,000 official-looking documents trying to trick you into buying inflated mortgage insurance everytime you buy a house or take out a loan. In addition, they form the basis for a lot of the personal information, especially home address information, that appears absolutely everywhere about absolutely everyone.

I haven't even touched on the fun inherent in criminal records. It used to be if you had a minor run-in with the law, especially one from long ago, you could fix your life and get on with things. Nowadays, get convicted of anything at all and you're sentenced to never holding certain jobs and potentially career ruination for the rest of your life. Couple that with the fact that breaking laws is so easy to do these days because there are too many of them and you've got one heck of an interesting situation. It's real fun when you have to listen to someone on the phone telling you they're afraid they're going to lose a job because you posted something online that they did 15 years ago, especially when you can't do anything about it. Those phone calls really make my day, let me tell you.

People really need to think these things through, and it's not just about "well my tax dollars paid for it". At least it shouldn't be in a world designed for people to actually live in. You should also consider the notion that using tax dollars to guarantee that a private individual or corporation can make a profit with almost no investment is inherently wrong. Most of these "free enterprise" idiots are perfectly content to let government (read: "we the people who pay taxes") absorb their costs while they want all the benefits.

firehisass

[pangu]

Don't you mean fireherass? Oh wait, this is Slashdot, you didn't rtfa.

Re:OK, it's three things that are certain in life.

[peragrin]

unfortunately what you really get is

lawsuits, taxes, and then death.

Or ....

[Skapare]

Or she still has that monster size paper copy machine that still needs to be paid off (they are not cheap in the versions needed to handle the large maps involved).

I agree, in this day and age, we should have such maps for no more than the cost of digital reproduction when we get them in digital form. And we should be able to. But just keep in mind why these tax assessors, and other government office officials in other circumstances like this, might be trying to collect the same money for digital data as for paper data ... they are stuck with continuing to pay off the loan for that equipment.

I hope the court rules against her since we need to move forward instead of being stuck in the past. But these government offices do have (incorrectly anticipated) future costs to resolve (how to pay off a giant photo copy machine when no one wants or can even use paper anymore).

You cannot copyright an idea

[omnirealm]

As has been pointed out many times before on Slashdot, copyright can only protect creative expressions, not ideas. To the extent that a copyright of a particular expression would be tantamount to copyrighting the idea, then one cannot legitimately claim copyright over the expression. If the expression is primarily functional in nature and if the only reasonable alternative representations of the idea are preposterous trivial modifications (e.g., change the colors of the map, make the lines dotted rather than solid, etc.), then that is a strong indication that the expression is substantially equivalent to the idea itself and is not candidate for copyright protection under U.S. law.

(Disclaimer: IANAL, but I did take a graduate law course on IP about a year ago. This post is not intended to be legal advice. Consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction for legal advice before you take any actions based on the conjectures contained in this post. Have a nice day.)

Re:You cannot copyright an idea

[Yartrebo]

My understanding is that the creativity bar is so low that essentially everything passes it. I've seen nautical charts copied verbatim from the US government and with no aesthetic changes with a copyright mark on it. Databases are also routinely copyrighted.

The creativity part is best ignored. It's so restricted as to be essentially non-existant.

PS: IANAL, so do take this with a grain of salt.

Re:The lady is a hero.

[Anonymous Coward]

The 8 dollars per copy goes to the tax assessor not the county or the state.

She is filing suit be she wants the money...

So you consider a public official selling public records for a profit a hero?

Lets let all public officials in on this plan, I wonder what the president has for sale...

Re:Freedom of Information, analog hole.

[DMCBOSTON]

Most dealings I've had, the registry of deeds will charge a dollar a page, books can't leave the room, so you're stuck. Not too bad, it probably covers their costs and then some, but not unreasonable. Assessors info where I come from is online, including all owner info. It's all public record. Maps are available online, probably can be downloaded or printed, but I see a lot of hosting companies that want you to download nifty software to print it for a fee. I lined up a digital camera facing the monitor and took a picture of my own plot map. It's like the digital version of the analog hole. 'LOL'

Is there a privacy issue here?

[plopez]

Should these records be distributed so that marketers and others can see how mauch money we make etc.? What if it were used by terrorists to target rich people(ok this last bit is a bit extreme)?

But still is there a privacy issue lurking in the wings?

Re:Is there a privacy issue here?

[Twanfox]

I'm going out on a limb here, since I have not ever looked at tax maps, nor did I RTFA. However, contextually speaking, the maps in question would appear to contain information concerning property taxes and not the income of individual families living on that property. While one could infer some correlation between property tax and family income, it isn't as if these maps contain the information you seem to think it does.

Besides, I don't care. If these are documents produced by the government, whatever information they have on them, they should be in the public domain. If it is too dangerous for anyone to have, then perhaps the government shouldn't be making the documents. The threat from having our government not provide total transparency of their operations to the people is far greater than any terrorist threat you might perceive. Not sure why that is such a hard concept to grasp.

Paying Fines in Pennies

[syntap]

I wonder if WV will get back at those who pay $2000 fines in pennies by giving this guy the "collection of county tax maps (in TIF format)" in little 3.5" floppy chunks?

Re:The lady is a hero.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets let all public officials in on this plan, I wonder what the president has for sale... If we wind up with Clintons again, here's a start:

Pardons
Overnight stays in the Lincoln bedroom
Private FBI files
Jobs in the White House travel office

Dang, it'd be easier to list what isn't for sale:

White House silverware - Hillary wants to take some more when she leaves. The Clintons are a few place setting short. :-P

Dating your sister/cousin in WV

[Anonymous Coward]

And making babies with your cousin or sister in WV.

Re:Dating your sister/cousin in WV

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing says lovin' like somethin' from your cousin!

As a West Virginia Property Owner...

[Black-Man]

I can say for a state run by a bunch of Democrats the politicians tow a fine line between alienating a population whose "property rights" is right up there w/ "gun rights". A few years back my property taxes in greenbrier county went up 2-fold and there was near anarchy. These accessors want to keep these records private and away from the land owners for a reason. They are deathly afraid of what property owners will see of inconsistent patterns of taxation - and breaks they give large land holders such as timber interests. Yeah.... this from a bunch of democrats.

Re:As a West Virginia Property Owner...

[Shadowlore]

Why should it suprise you that Democrats do this? This isn't about cynicism, just analysis. Power corrupts. Taxation is a tremendous power. It takes a very stout person to resist that temptation (I can think of one person in the U.S. Congress who meets that criterion).

Democrats will cozy up with virtually anyone for the right price just as much as Republicans.[1] The problem isn't which party, the problem is in the power to make such agreements in the first place. Full transparency has a role to play in curbing it, but you can rarely, if ever, be sure you have it. Better to not have the power in place to begin with.

It's not any different in principle to the Democrats in the U.S. Congress objecting to the POTUS using the power they gave him. Some of the prominent ones weren't upset with the power, just *who* was using it, and to a lesser extent how. Party warfare is a tool on par with class warfare. As long as we fight about which party is less evil, they both win because we are distracted from seeing the underlying problem is the power they fight over.

To put it another way, years ago the city I live in had a bond vote for building a new auditorium. A bond vote is a public vote on whether or not to use a bond to pay for something. It was voted down. So they found another way to pay for it and built it. You guessed it, they raised taxes. People were outraged, "we voted against this!" they cried. No, some had to correct them, you voted to not pay for it with a bond. You were never given a vote on whether or not to do it, just how to pay for it (borrow and pay off with plunder, or go straight to the plunderin).

These are some of the reasons I am against any limits on who can spend what or political campaigns. If you want to know who is paying for it, fine. But remove the limits. What we have now only gives more influence to those who can find ways around the caps, and we do not get transparency. Another problem brought to us by "bipartisanship".

It almost leads me to a conclusion that we should outlaw political parties.

1. In fact last I analyzed the visible donations ("campaign/party contributions"), Democrats get more from businesses and Republicans get more from individuals. Yet the "perception" is the opposite, and perpetuated by the media.

Re:As a West Virginia Property Owner...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not from West Virginia but in my state we don't list party affiliations on the ballot for local elections. It seems likely to me that your state works the same way. I find it very unlikely that this is a partisan issue.

Veeck v. Southern Bldg. Code Congress

[Insightfill]

Reminds me of this one from 2001: Veeck v. Southern Bldg. Code Congress Texas town has the writing of the building code outsourced. Local guy obtains a copy and posts on the Internet, only to get sued for copyright infringement.

Re:Veeck v. Southern Bldg. Code Congress

[TubeSteak]

Short version: local guy wins.
http://www.ansi.org/news_publications/news_story.aspx?menuid=7&articleid=446

Longer version: Local guy loses, loses again, appeals to U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and wins.

"It is also possible that ANSI and others may seek a legislative solution to clarify that a government entity at any level cannot in effect turn a privately copyrighted work into a public good solely by referencing it into law."

Good luck with that. What the government giveth, the government can taketh away.

Re:Veeck v. Southern Bldg. Code Congress

[Insightfill]

Short version: local guy wins. Longer version: Local guy loses, loses again, appeals to U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and wins.

Thanks for the follow-up. I forgot about this case until today, and after I had posted I was able to spend about two minutes trying to find out how it ended.

Well, we can hope that the next administration is less hostile to the citizens. The general track-record for both major parties hasn't been that good, though.

Re:Veeck v. Southern Bldg. Code Congress

[Anonymous Coward]

We could all lose on that one. Should government decide to outside all code/law writing to an outside source, we could potentially be dragged into court for violating a code that we are not allowed to see.

Re:Freedom of Information, analog hole.

[maxume]

It's the analog version of the analog hole, unless you have a very interesting monitor and camera.

so when someone

[T-ice]

If my job is ever replaced by a machine, I can sue whoever developed the machine?

Re:The lady is a hero.

[khallow]

Look, the corporation has the money. They should pay it.

Using that logic, government should pay since they have the most money.

There is an argument for charging for public info

[rbrander]

...but it's to benefit the PUBLIC, not their servants.

When it was all paper, Calgary used to let you come look at your own street map (dollar figure on every house lot superimposed) for free. That, to most people's mind, satisfied the requirement that you have transparency about your own assessment and those most directly comparable to it.

If you wanted a whole neighbourhood map, though, that was some hundreds of dollars; and it scaled up to tens of thousands for 10 lbs. of paper that gave you the hundreds of thousands of homes for the whole city.

The argument was that this amount of data was of very little interest to the private citizen - and a valuable professional tool for any real-estate company. So since the public data cost the public a lot of money to gather, due diligence in exploiting that property of the municipality required extraction of a market price from those businessmen, we charged what that traffic would bear. No different than letting a community group use a city building for free to have a meeting about re-zoning, but charging 1,000 salesmen market price to use it for a business conference.

Alas, nobody could deny that putting it all on the Internet was a public service. I think the "business" of selling large amounts of it has also fallen off because the real-estate agents just use the web site heavily, looking up one street at a time around houses they are selling or thinking of buying. Again, the "greater good" ruled...it was nice to have a revenue stream of four bits or a buck per citizen selling a $20K sheaf of paper to a dozen-odd real estate companies every year, but allowing the resource on the Net so people didn't have to come down to City Hall to make an inquiry was overall a greater public good. If somebody suffered from the change, well, that happens with changes, even overall-good ones.

I rather doubt the assessor lady is the personal owner of the copyright - the copyright holder has decided to do something else with their property. It's not copyright violation, it's use of copyright to maximize public good. Sorry.

She may have a point...

[davidwr]

If the tax maps themselves are "official documents" and have the force of law, then they are in the public domain.

If they are merely "for your convenience" renderings of legal descriptions of tax boundaries, e.g. "The boundary of Fire Tax District 1 runs from Point A to Point B" then she may be able to claim copyright. Any other mapmaker is free to go back to the same legal descriptions and create their own maps.

A few years ago the Supreme Court said that if a city "incorporated by reference" a "book of standard codes" as its electrical code, the incorporated portion could be printed without paying royalties to the people who wrote the book.

Speaking as a programmer who uses this data...

[Anonymous Coward]

I work at a company that does analysis of this data for our clients. We process this data and provide access to it for our customers. Our analysis adds significant value to this data. We currently work out of the state of Florida and provide access to the tax collector and property assessor data for every county in Florida. (Company name removed for obvious reasons.)

There have been times where the counties have fought us to keep their data secret. For example, Collier county refused to give us GIS shapefiles for their county. These files were put together with public funds and tax money, and they refused to give the information to private companies for free. My boss took the county to court and won - they now provide this data for free on the Internet to anybody.

We have also run into counties in other states where they were planning on charging us $0.02/CPU second on their server for access to their public access data. While I can understand another state considering charging firms from out of the state for the data, they assume that it's their job to make money from that data. That data has been paid for, and should be free.

As much as I'm against lawsuits as a solution to a problem in most cases, this is one of the cases where I think it's appropriate. It's YOUR data and it's put out for personal, business, and educational purposes. Collecting this data and not allowing others to access, including private companies, is keeping information that keeps the government honest away from YOU.

A claim of threat of material harm?

[SlappyBastard]

Most states require that a claim of material harm be inherently anti-competitive, and many states require that a material harm claim be built around some claim of malice. You can't just claim material harm because the other guy's idea makes your idea look sucky.

Also, aren't tax maps a matter of public record? I've seen something of the like in the Arcfile data from the Census.

Party affiliation meaningless below national level

[SlappyBastard]

Look at Philadelphia. That city is about as committed to the values of the Democratic Party as a right-wing Banana Republic.

Re:Small fish in even smaller ponds - local gov ft

[celle]

I wonder if shes committing a crime, something along the line of fraud. That's since its by law public information and supposed to be available for free since the taxpayers have already paid for it.

copyright?

[celle]

Where does copyright come in? It's not an original work and its paid for by the taxpayers. This woman should be in jail.

In Texas...

[Nick Driver]

...the local municipality has no say in what they consider public records or not. The State dictates this to the city, county and appraisal district governing bodies. And yup, the appraisal tax maps are public records.

Re:In Texas...

[aevans]

Not only public record, but the information is "public domain" meaning devoid of copyright. Because it was collected with tax dollars for public use. So the West Virginia assessor is lying through his teeth on that account as well.

Re:Party affiliation meaningless below national le

[swillden]

Party platforms are pretty significant at the state level. If the states were more powerful (i.e. if the federal government were smaller), even more of the ideological debate would happen at the state level.

Re:OK, it's three things that are certain in life.

[LrdDimwit]

Most people get sued maybe once in their whole life, but pay taxes every year. I think I know where your trouble with the lawsuits is coming from. You're supposed to pay the taxes, you know ...

Re:Funny Slashdot is bitching about this when...

[celle]

Vs Bush Jr. Clinton was an angel. Or maybe you can walk over a childs grave over meaningless wars and wholesale corporate robbery of the public and government standards that took generations to build.

Government for the people - politicians don't get

[watermodem]

A government: Of the people, By the people and For the people seems to be something Bureaucrats and Politicians are incapable of understanding and executing.

Re:The lady is a hero.

[arminw]

......We are already paying higher income taxes every year so corporations can have lower taxes.......

So if the corporations pay more, including tax, do you really think that they won't pass those costs on to the consumers by higher prices? Corporations don't pay tax, only people do, you and I. Taxes are to the national economy as overhead is to any business. To have more money in the taxpayer's own pocket it is necessary to cut down on the national overhead, all taxes collected. It makes absolutely no difference how those overhead costs are distributed, only the total matters.

It's simple ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody buys the map for $20, and they or a team of interested volunteers copy the numbers into a Google Earth .kml file which is then distributed at will.

You can't copyright the numbers.

Property map survey lines don't match up

[Anonymous Coward]

From personal knowledge, I know that this is one thing they don't want to deal with. Some of the surveys are ancient and not necessarily accurate with adjoining plots. The lines in property maps simply do not 'add up' to a complete map. The sizes are all legal and 'correct' for taxes and ownership, but there may be small line length, angle, or reference issues. To digitize the maps accurately in some areas will likely take 100s of surveys to be fixed in each county depending on the wording of original surveys and deeds. Exposing this 'knowledge' and the liability involved (mostly for the property owners really) is something no one wants.

Re:Funny Slashdot is bitching about this when...

[louisadkins]

.. and would you like cherries with your new car, or shall we call the diner for cheese sticks?

This won't work

[Anonymous Coward]

but the look on their face as you propose it will be priceless:

tell them when you fill in a form that you will require a $1 payment for work carried out on their behalf. After all they're making money off what you just put in, so it's only fair you get a cut...

Re:The lady is a hero.

[Foobar of Borg]

So if the corporations pay more, including tax, do you really think that they won't pass those costs on to the consumers by higher prices? Corporations don't pay tax, only people do, you and I. Taxes are to the national economy as overhead is to any business. To have more money in the taxpayer's own pocket it is necessary to cut down on the national overhead, all taxes collected. It makes absolutely no difference how those overhead costs are distributed, only the total matters.

You know, you're right. Only people ultimately pay taxes. In fact, I would like to test this hypothesis. Let's completely get rid of the individual income tax and only tax corporations. After all, we will wind up paying for it eventually through higher costs, right? And think of how small the IRS would become. That's a hell of a lot of overhead we'd get rid of.

"Who's with me? Who's bloody with me?!"

I hope the assessor loses...

[glitch23]

because having tax values online makes it easier to buy a house. I'm in the market for a house in north-central WV and I've tried to use http://www.zillow.com/ to compare the assessed value of a house with the list price to be an informed buyer. The data isn't always accurate or it can be missing. Publishing these maps may not help the situation but it shouldn't hurt it either.

Re:The lady is a hero.

[jthill]

Corporations don't pay tax, only people do, you and I.

Do you really think that if businesses paid none and individuals paid all of the cost of government, that employees wouldn't need higher wages to cover it?

It'd work (financially) much better if businesses paid all of the cost of government. Kaboom: less paperwork, fewer people required to process it. Lots more money in individuals' pockets.

It'd be a horrible idea for other reasons, but do the math: if the businesses are honest, prices go up by less than their employees' disposable income does.

Financial Damages?

[PPH]

Is access to property records being used here as a method for revenue generation? IANAL, but this might run afoul of some legal requirements to make such records available to the public.

GOVERNMENT CAN'T HOLD COPYRIGHTS

[Jane Q. Public]

Copyrights go only to individuals and (unfortunately) corporations. Government cannot hold copyrights. Even the U.S. government -- while it does have secrets -- does not hold copyrights. Consider, for just one example, all the united States military training manuals that are reprinted -- with impunity, and for a profit -- by private publishers all over the place. They can, because the material is NOT copyrightable.
So, while to some degree (we hope a small one) it is possible for government to keep secrets, copyrights are not something it is allowed.

Re:GOVERNMENT CAN'T HOLD COPYRIGHTS

[WizardOfFoo]

Not entirely true - see 17 USC 105: Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise. Note this only applies to the federal government and does not restrict state and local governments from claiming copyright with the exception of their laws and court decisions. Usual IANAL, consult your legal advisor before use.

Re:GOVERNMENT CAN'T HOLD COPYRIGHTS

[Jane Q. Public]

I admit that is interesting and good to know, but it has no bearing on the discussion.

Re:OK, it's three things that are certain in life.

[compro01]

and then more taxes (estate/inheritance).

Re:OK, it's three things that are certain in life.

[Rude Turnip]

Yeah, but at least the lawsuits are tax-deductible that way.

What's the motivation?

[kilodelta]

Google Maps with street view could easily be stretched to include tax information. I don't see what the tax office stands to gain though the $100K plus for all images might be a clue.

Re:The lady is a hero.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are making exagerated claims about my friend Bill. I find that hard to swallow.

-- Monica

Devil's Advocate

[Stanislav_J]

While I agree that public records should be accessible, it really depends on how one defines "public" and "accessible." Are there laws around that demand that such records must be put on the Internet? As long as they are obtainable from the source, via whatever methodology and in whatever format the source makes available, they are both "public" and "accessible." There is a strong case to be made that some information should be accessible, but not easily or anonymously accessible. I don't particularly want any thief, stalker, extortionist, or generally unbalanced yahoo viewing MY tax or property records for no good or legitimate reason. I think it perfectly reasonable that if someone wants to see those, they should have to either (a)physically go to the source, or (b)obtain hard copies via mail with a written request. In both cases, ID should be checked and a record kept. Sure, if someone really wanted to screw me over using that information, they could use a fake ID, mail drop, etc., but the point is that the vast majority of the voyeurs would be put off by the inability to make the request anonymously.

the purpose of gov't..

[rastoboy29]

..is not to make money.  Anyone who says government should be run like a business should be shot.

Re:The lady is a hero.

[arminw]

....if the businesses are honest, prices go up by less than their employees' disposable income does......

I don't understand what the honesty of businesses has to do with how much money I have left to get a given "market basket" of goods and services. If the profits of the business stays at the same percentage, the market basket would cost more than at present by the total tax burden now exclusively on all businesses.

I do agree that the cost of collecting the taxes would decrease, since there are far fewer taxpayers to keep track of. In the big scheme of things though, that wouldn't be all that huge an amount. What is the percentage cost of collecting all taxes compared to the amount of tax collected? Since there would be fewer tax accounts to administer, there should be an increase of efficiency, but I suspect it would not amount to a hill of beans. It sure would simplify paperwork for individuals on April 15th though.

Luke 3:13, Matthew 9:9-17

[argent]

Luke 3:13 - And he said unto them, extort no more than that which is appointed you.

Matthew 9:9-17 - As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.

While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"

On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

dont you mean

[Anonymous Coward]

5.25 inch?

sheesh, kids these days

Rogue Developers

[Anonymous Coward]

In rural MO (ie not in a city) owners are allowed to build whatever..

No building permits, no building standards, no nothing.

Trailer parks pop up over night.

Re:The lady is a hero.

[yndrd1984]

Let's completely get rid of the individual income tax and only tax corporations.

And then people start to believe that everything from the government is free, so they jack the tax rate to 99%... and bad things happen.

Re:The lady is a hero.

[jthill]

The point here is that not only would businesses' taxes go up, but so would individuals' income, by at least the same amount.

The point here is at the level of object permanence, which infants learn right around the time they learn to crawl — which, by the way, happens before they can say "mama". Something's got your brain shut down at a very fundamental level.

Not accurate

[bruce_the_loon]

I can't find Ed Deline's mansion or the Montecito Resort and Casino.

I call corruption.

Someone Needs A New Job

[jman.org]

Have to wonder how much effort the West Virginia Assessor has expended making sure people pay extra for public information, effort which is ultimately paid for by the good citizens of that state.

One would think the reduced cost from not printing & storing hard copies of information (some of which will certainly out of date before being purchased) would more than offset the relatively meager revenue generated by selling paper copies, vs. a 1-time scan & download link from the state's web space.

Instead of worrying about keeping up with last year's budget, a better solution would be to work a little PR magic & get a piece of those savings allocated toward offsetting the lowered revenue from printing & selling paper maps.

Public records were how an ex tracked me down

[Shivetya]

She wasn't sure where I lived, but she check various metro counties in Atlanta till my name popped up. She then was able to call me as my county listed the phone numbers then! The problem I have with valuations listed is that it gives people the ability to reason your income as well.

You cannot be anonymous much anymore and public records need some protection at it does open the door to stalkers. One of my ex-girlfriends tried repeatedly to have her name removed because of her ex-husband (restraining order and such) but ran into a stonewall.

WV assessor

[JEDQOEI UR-puqewr]

It probably has little to do with the charges and EVERYTHING to do with NOT wanting the public to easily FIND OUT HOW MUCH LAND THE COAL COMPANIES OWN. Rapists never want to be interrupted. Duh

Re:OK, it's three things that are certain in life.

[Meski]

Death, death lawsuits, Tax, tax lawsuits. And possibly lawsuit lawsuits. There are other combinations, but it's making me nauseous.

Her contact info:

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to speak with this assessor, contact her at:

Phyllis Gatson, Assessor
Kanawha County
409 Virginia Street East
Charleston, WV 25301-2590
304-357-0143

Not in Texas

[BenEnglishAtHome]

...you are only allowed to carry guns you qualified on and registered as your CC side arm. My understanding is that this is pretty much in every state's CC laws...

I have a real problem with having to specify the handgun you're going to carry. I've carried several different guns, depending on what I'm wearing and the occasion. I'd hate to have to specify all my carry guns on my license in advance. What happens when I buy a new one?

In Texas, if you qualify with a revolver, you can only carry a revolver. If you qualify with an autopistol, you can carry any handgun. At no time do we have to choose in advance and notify the state of our chosen carry gun for the day. Having to do so seems incredibly weird to me.

Of course, the existence of places where a non-trivial percentage of people are not always armed seems pretty weird to me, too. But I've heard that such places exist. :-)

Re:Not in Texas

[sumdumass]

I think the idea behind registering or qualifying the gun your going to carry is so that you don't barrow a friends glock or tarsus to qualify and then carry a malfunctioning Saturday night special that couldn't hit a target withing 2 foot of where it was aimed at.

It doesn't have to be a Saturday night special either, any gun that doesn't hit where it is aimed at would be just as bad. Some states appear to want to keep these from being used so they make you qualify with your side arm. For someone who is an accomplished shooter and a responsible one at that, this probably isn't an issue. But for the people who are allowing guess to be carried in stated where it had been outlawed for quite a while, it could be.

I think you can qualify additional guns after being issued the permits but I think this changes from state to state as in needing to qualify the gun to begin with. Over all, I think it is an unnecessary step but it probably puts a lot of minds at ease so I am willing to accept it.

I don't do conceal carry in my home state because I have been in fights with the sheriff and police. They would deny me if for nothing else then to hang it over my head. I have however installed a gun rack in the truck and carry a shotgun or riffle with me. Sometimes I will hang a Dan Wesson .357 revolver from it. But I don't like the way it swings when going down bumpy and curvy roads. They aren't loaded but the ammo is hanging right there with them. I have never needed a gun that I didn't already have with me (hunting and so on) outside of my property or a few feet away from the truck. And I have never needed a gun for a person so it works out for me pretty well I get the chance to piss some of the police and sheriffs off because they know they can't do anything about them being there.

Thinking they will refuse my background check might be a bit of paranoia on my part, but I'm not about to test it. In my state, the sheriff doesn't have to have a reason to deny one. According to a local gun club I'm a member of, is rarely done without a reason but they can just say no without one.

A strange thing about having an armed public. I went to a state park and some one came in and broke into all the cars in the parking lot looking for expensive stuff they could just take. There were two trucks with gun racks there and neither of ours were touched. I don't know if it is because they thought we would have more guns with is and use them when we came back, or if they thought that breaking in would cause the law to look harder for them. I Just don't know but the windows weren't smashed out when I got there and they were when we were leaving. Of course there wasn't anything in mine worth stealing other then a $50 smooth bore Stevenson shot gun that has been through hell and back before I bought it from my grandpa 20 years ago. I think the only reason I still have it is because he made me buy it from him instead of giving it away.