RE: U.S. government copyright ownership (Was RE: US National Airspace Data CD-ROM - ATA-120)

["Meier, Robert" <Bob.Meier@fanucrobotics.com>]

> As far as copyright goes, my understanding (IANAL) is that no federal
> document can be copywritten.

	I may be wrong, but I believe that this incorrect.  I understand
that the U.S. government (NASA, GAO, GPO, etc.) is the largest holder
of U.S. copyrights, trademarks, and patents.

> Some legislation or something prevents it.

	I believe that there is legislation that grants non-exclusive
limitted copy-and-use authority to any U.S. citizen for material
produced with taxpayer money.  The major limits are that you cannot
further limit others use of the material, and that alterations,
deletions, and additions must be clearly indicated.

	I was somewhat miffed when I found out that NASA had filed
patent claims on orbital rendezvous techniques that I detailed in
a report and did not name me on the patent.  I immediately went
to "The Rolling Stones" by Robert Heinlein and confirmed that
one of the techniques was described in detail and should not
therefore have been patentable.  I was informed that NASA had
a standard policy of filing a flood of patent claims, mostly
frivilous.  This allowed any U.S. citizen to then use the
material, including NASA, without having to fight someone over
the use of a "non-linear inertia-based deformation delivery
system", better known as a hammer.

	Copyright of United States Code, Code of Federal Regulations,
Federal Register, etc. are owned AFAIK by the GPO.  Obtaining these
directly from the GPO usually involves unreasonably high price tags.
The most commonly used portions, are usually available at lower
prices from interested copiers.  Annually, the ASA sells millions
of copies of excerpts from the Code of Federal Regulations, as
"FAR/AIM".

Robert J. Meier                 FANUC Robotics North America
tel:+1.248.377.7469    mailto:robert.meier@fanucrobotics.com
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