Selected recent postings on this dispute, about which I posted here.
1) From ADF Alliance Alert: Oregon threatens over statutes copyright? (with a link to this post at The Volokh Conspiracy (and associated Comments)
2) J’s Scratchpad: James Grimmelman: Copyright, Technology, and Access to the Law: Old Problems and New Solutions
If you want to follow this story, here are direct links and suggested searches:
1) Further discussion of this topic can be found at Jack Bog’s Blog, see post and comments here: “Don’t you dare post Oregon laws on the internet!”
2) See also Loaded Orygun post, here.
The following represents my opinion, from my perspective as an Oregon public law librarian:
My previous posts on this subject are here and here and here.
I’ve been reading, among other things, the blog Comments about the Oregon Legislative Counsel “copyright” dispute and my reaction yesterday and still today is: we don’t have all the facts so please don’t jump to conclusions.
You may not know that the Battle for Public Access to GAO Documents (and its sister Battle for Free, Public Access to CRS documents) has been waging for a very long time (decades, in fact).
Here is a summary from WisBlog, “Exclusive Rights to GAO Legislative Histories Sold to Thomson West?” (thanks, Bonnie!), with links to relevant documents and related stories (and here is the one from the Law Librarian Blog).
Excerpt from Boing Boing story, “Did the US gov’t sell exclusive access to its legislative history to Thomson West?” :
Would a records check on you erroneously show a criminal conviction? If it did, what steps would you take to clear your record?
For example, what would you do if in the course of applying for a mortgage or a job or looking for an apartment, the bank, employer or apartment manager told you, “forget about it” because a background or credit check came up with a criminal conviction on your record. So you didn’t know you even had a “record” did you? Well think again. This type of identity theft (or besmirching) is happening, again and again.
Trying to fix this type of criminal record error makes clearing your financial record after a financial identity theft look like a walk in the park (ok, a really big park, with a lot of really steep hills). This is partly because the reason for the error can be located anywhere from the criminal impersonator (if there is one) to errors by a law enforcement agency, by the database vendor, or by whomever is contracting for the information. (There are probably others in this chain.)
Oregon Legal Research Blog