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Professor Posts "Illegal Copy" of Guide To Oregon Public Record Laws
An anonymous reader writes "Copyright law has previously been used by some states to try to prevent people from passing around copies of their own government's laws. But in a new level of meta-absurdity, the attorney general of Oregon is claiming copyright over a state-produced guide to using public-records laws. That isn't sitting well with one frequent user of the laws, who has posted a copy of the guide to his website and is daring the AG to respond. The AG, who previously pledged to improve responses to public-records requests, has not responded yet." The challenger here is University of Oregon Professor Bill Harbaugh.
How can the law which every citizen expected to comply with be allowed to exist under Copyright? How can keeping us from copying the law possibly be an advancement of the sciences and useful arts? Once it becomes law it is no longer a creative work and is now a fact, a fact which is by its very nature that which least deserves to be kept from the public.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
passive-aggressive
Or you could call it civil disobedience. He is deliberately calling out the AG so he can hopefully win without the trouble, time, and expense of a court fight.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Even more Ironic: Many of these came about due to complaints from the media, caused by one School district.
A few years ago, the publicly elected board of a very small rural school district in southern Oregon decided to investigate some reports of fraud, embezzlement, unfair contract favoritism, and lots of other nasty allegations about some employees at the school. Not the teachers, but, if I remember right, the food service, facilities, etc. So the board hired someone they liked to investigate. (He happened to also be the school board's lawyer). So he did his investigation, and when they did the presentation to the board, they kicked everyone out of the room, chatted for a few minutes, and let everyone back in.. then the board said "there was nothing in the report that showed any truth the rumors". So people asked to see the damn report. And the board claimed it was Attorney client privilege under state of Oregon law, which is not available under the open records laws.
Basically, the Gist of why every newspaper and TV channel (and a bunch of citizens) were filing objections, was the district was arguing that even if they pay a lawyer to do anything for the district (even write a book report) that could be considered client-attorney privilege, if the board decides.
Well, that and the people were pissed that the Small school district, that had huge money problems, had a roof collapse in a school they couldn't afford to fix, etc.. spent huge amounts of money, appealing rulings too keep secret a report paid for with tax payer dollars, about how tax payer dollars were potentially being abused. (I don't miss living in the small towns)
http://www.publications.ojd.state.or.us/A126655.htm
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
You are welcome to lobby Congress to incorporate that radical provision into copyright law, but I don't think its going to fly. If you restrict it to those when "created by a public entity", you might have a tiny bit better luck, as without that your proposal would deny copyright to privately written legal texts, etc. (Anyhow, rather than exceptions to copyright to the work based on its "implied use", why wouldn't you just create an exception to the exclusive rights of copyright based on the actual use as, essentially, an extension to the existing Fair Use rule? That seems to me to be more sensible.)
But, at any rate, that's not the law as it stands, so even granting (for the sake of argument only) that your proposal ought to be the law, it isn't the law, and so isn't a convincing argument for why this work would be outside the scope of copyright under the law today.
Well it's standard legal procedure when reviewing laws to go back and discover the "original intent" of the men who authored the law. Let's see what the authors behind the Second Amendment said about it - "On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." (Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823)
.
"The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed..... for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive. " ---Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (Philadelphia 1787).
During the Massachusetts ratifying convention William Symmes warned that the new government at some point "shall be too firmly fixed in the saddle to be overthrown by anything but a general insurrection."
"O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people! Your arms, wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone...Did you ever read of any revolution in a nation...inflicted by those who had no power at all?" and "nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined." - Patrick Henry
"When the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them." - George Mason
"And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms....The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants" - future founder of the Democratic Party, Thomas Jefferson in a letter to William S. Smith in 1787
And last but certainly not least:
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people," from the Constitution itself -AND- "Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness" from the 1776 Declaration of Independence
Aside -
I'm sorry if these pro-liberty, pro-revolutionary viewpoints are inconvenient for your pro-big-government view. I don't mean offense. I mean to educate.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Usually, you don't have standing to challenge a claim of copyright in court unless (these are illustrative rather than exhaustive):
(1) You are the actual creator of the work, and the claim of copyright is itself therefore an actionable violation of your rights, or
(2) The purported copyright holder is suing you for violating the copyright, and you are interposing the invalidity of the copyright as a reason you shouldn't be held liable.
"Someone else made a bogus claim of a legal right" is not, generally, itself a cause of action on which you can prevail in court. If it were, the courts would be even more clogged than they are now.
What you call the "passive-aggressive" route -- violating a right that someone claims they have and challenging them to enforce it -- is a common way of challenging a legal claim, since it puts the person making the claim in the position of publicly backing down or filing a suit in which you can challenge the validity of the claim.