Hello, i have gotten no help or advice so far on how to deal with data licensed under the kansas open records act http://kansasstatutes.lesterama.org/Chapter_45/Article_2/. I need some help here because I dont understand how it meshes with creative commons. I wrote to the DA but he will not advise me. I need a lawyers advice on this issue for kansas, can anyone please help? mike
Hi Mike,
I am not a lawyer -- this is just my personal understanding of the issue.
I am not sure what your intended project is, but I'm not optimistic. The law you link is an "open records" law, which in general is about the ability to openly access or view the records; it's about availability, rather than republishing rights. The only place I see that guarantees the right to *republish* anything is in two places numbered 48(b), in reference to statistics. (This is not surprising, because under U.S. law, statistics and facts are generally not subject to copyright, no matter who provides them.)
In short, "open records" laws are common in U.S. states and municipalities, but as I understand it have little relation to copyright status. (This summary affirms that it's about open *access*.)
For a true legal opinion, your best bet is probably to hire an attorney familiar with intellectual property law in Kansas; short of that, perhaps you could find a law school professor/class who would be interested in looking into it?
-Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]] on Wikipedia
On Feb 12, 2013, at 7:57 PM, Mike Dupont wrote:
Hello, i have gotten no help or advice so far on how to deal with data licensed under the kansas open records act http://kansasstatutes.lesterama.org/Chapter_45/Article_2/. I need some help here because I dont understand how it meshes with creative commons. I wrote to the DA but he will not advise me. I need a lawyers advice on this issue for kansas, can anyone please help? mike
-- James Michael DuPont Member of Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova http://flossk.org Saving wikipedia(tm) articles from deletion http://SpeedyDeletion.wikia.com Contributor FOSM, the CC-BY-SA map of the world http://fosm.org Mozilla Rep https://reps.mozilla.org/u/h4ck3rm1k3 Free Software Foundation Europe Fellow http://fsfe.org/support/?h4ck3rm1k3 _______________________________________________ GLAM-US mailing list GLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us
Pete Forsyth peteforsyth@gmail.com 503-383-9454 mobile
I don't see anything in the Act that would affect copyright status. In other words, you can still assume that all original material (besides raw data) that is produced by the state of Kansas is fully copyrighted. As far as I know, Florida is the only state that explicitly releases all of its government works to the public domain.
Ryan Kaldari
On 2/12/13 7:57 PM, Mike Dupont wrote:
Hello, i have gotten no help or advice so far on how to deal with data licensed under the kansas open records act http://kansasstatutes.lesterama.org/Chapter_45/Article_2/. I need some help here because I dont understand how it meshes with creative commons. I wrote to the DA but he will not advise me. I need a lawyers advice on this issue for kansas, can anyone please help? mike
-- James Michael DuPont Member of Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova http://flossk.org Saving wikipedia(tm) articles from deletion http://SpeedyDeletion.wikia.com Contributor FOSM, the CC-BY-SA map of the world http://fosm.org Mozilla Rep https://reps.mozilla.org/u/h4ck3rm1k3 Free Software Foundation Europe Fellow http://fsfe.org/support/?h4ck3rm1k3
GLAM-US mailing list GLAM-US@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us