Re: NEC Licence (Work of US Gov. Employees)

[Richard Braakman <dark@xs4all.nl>]

Raul Miller wrote:

from the House report:

>  The prohibition on copyright protection for United States Government works
>is not intended to have any effect on protection of these works abroad. Works
>of the governments of most other countries are copyrighted. There are no
>valid policy reasons for denying such protection to United States Government
>works in foreign countries, or for precluding the Government from making
>licenses for the use of its works abroad.

This is what I was afraid of.  It means that as a global organization,
we will need a license for all such works, in order to consider them
DFSG-free.

However, the text of the law does not seem to support the claim above:

>Sec. 105. Subject matter of copyright: United States Government works
>
>  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.

The phrasing suggests that the United States Government has no copyrights
to these works; not that it has them but is not allowed to enforce them.
So, is the paragraph from the House report a wish or a conclusion?

I suppose that the interpretation is not really up to US law, but to
the law of the country that copyright is being claimed in.  That means
in practice that our only protection is the Berne convention, which
as far as I know makes no special exception for works of governments.

(I dispute the "There are no valid policy reasons..." claim, by the
way.  If the public is prevented from using these works abroad, then,
in today's global economy, it lacks some important rights to these
works that were created with public money.  I don't suppose that my
objection will do any good, though :)

Richard Braakman