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Tennessee

What is the law?

Binding, on-point law (about)

None

Advisory sources (about)

A 2007 Tennessee attorney general opinion indicates that the "State of Tennessee is the copyright owner of photographs taken by the State of Tennessee's Photographic Services." Tenn. Op. Att'y Gen. No. 07-130 (Aug. 27, 2007). A 2009 opinion from the Tennessee Office of Open Records Counsel indicates that "federal copyright law creates an exception to the TPRA [Tennessee Public Records Act] and thus the [records] will not be available for inspection and/or copying." The Office of Open Records Counsel is authorized to provide "informal advisory opinions" regarding public records in Tennessee. Tenn. Code Ann. § 8-4-601.

Public records law (about)

The Tennessee Public Records Act (TPRA) was first enacted in 1957 and can be found at Tenn. Code Ann. § 10-7-503. A limited common law right of access to public records has been recognized in Tennessee since at least 1903. State v. Williams, 110 Tenn. 549, 75 S.W. 948 (1903).

Does the public records law restrict the use of disclosed records?

The Tennessee Public Records Act does not restrict subsequent use of records, or require a requestor to disclose their intended use. See The Capital Case Resource Center of Tennessee Inc. v. Woodall, 17 TAM 8-8, p.14 (Tenn. Ct. App. Jan,. 29, 1992); Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Open Government Guide: Access to Public Records and Meetings in Tennessee; Josh Jones, Open Records: A Guide for Municipal Officials, 2007. Requests for map data for commercial use, however, are eligible for additional fees. [1] Tenn. Code Ann. § 10-7-506(c)(1).

Specifics and examples (about)

Additional things to consider (about)

Tenn. Code Ann. § 10-7-307 states that "[t]itle to any record transferred to the state archives is vested in the state library and archives."

The TPRA restricts public records requests to Tennessee citizens. See Tenn. Code Ann. § 10-7-503. After a similar citizens-only restriction was overturned in Delaware, see Lee v. Miner, 33 Med. L. Rptr. 1839 (D. Del. May 31, 2005), Tennessee established a committee which proposed eliminating the citizen-only requirement in the TPRA, but the proposal was not adopted by the General Assembly, and the TPRA remains restricted to Tennessee citizens. After the Delaware decision, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a citizens-only public records law in Virginia. McBurney v. Young, 133 S. Ct. 1709, 185 L. Ed. 2d 758 (U.S. 2013).

The Tennessee code refers to "[a]ll artifacts, photographs and records" from state archeological digs as "property of the state," Tenn. Code Ann. § 11-6-105, and a Tennessee court has held that transcripts filed with a Tennessee court become "property of the state." State v. Watts, 670 S.W.2d 246 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1984).

Where else to go

• Tennessee Office of Open Records Counsel, available at http://www.comptroller.tn.gov/openrecords/index.asp.

• Tennessee State Library and Archives, available at http://www.tn.gov/tsla/index.htm.

• Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Open Government Guide: Access to Public Records and Meetings in Tennessee, available at http://www.rcfp.org/rcfp/orders/docs/ogg/TN.pdf.

Bibliography

Cases

• The Capital Case Resource Center of Tennessee Inc. v. Woodall, 17 TAM 8-8, p.14 (Tenn. Ct. App. Jan,. 29, 1992)

• State v. Watts, 670 S.W.2d 246 (Tenn. Crim. App. 1984), available at https://casetext.com/case/state-v-watts-86.

• Lee v. Miner, 33 Med. L. Rptr. 1839 (D. Del. May 31, 2005)

• McBurney v. Young, 133 S. Ct. 1709, 185 L. Ed. 2d 758 (U.S. 2013), available at http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=2705296316682556891.

Statutes

• Tenn. Code Ann. § 10-7-503.

• Tenn. Code Ann. § 10-7-506.

• Tenn. Code Ann. § 8-4-601.

• Tenn. Code Ann. § 8-6-204.

• Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-51-105.

• Tenn. Code Ann. § 7-89-109.

• Tenn. Code Ann. § 4-3-5507.

• Tenn. Code Ann. § 10-7-307.

• Tenn. Code Ann. § 11-6-105.

Attorney General Opinions

• Tenn. Op. Att'y Gen. No. 07-130 (Aug. 27, 2007), available at http://attorneygeneral.tn.gov/op/2007/op/op130.pdf.

Office of Open Records Counsel Opinions

• Office of Open Records Counsel, Opinion response to Ronald E. Mills, 2009, available at http://www.comptroller.tn.gov/openrecords/pdf/CityofKnoxville.pdf.

Other

• Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Open Government Guide: Access to Public Records and Meetings in Tennessee, available at http://www.rcfp.org/rcfp/orders/docs/ogg/TN.pdf.

• Josh Jones, Open Records: A Guide for Municipal Officials, 2007, available at http://www.mtas.tennessee.edu/Knowledgebase.nsf/0/0DCEF11AC2AC2E7F85257AC300622909/$FILE/Open%20Records.pdf.

Footnotes

• [1] Most recent litigation touching on the copyright status of state documents has concerned GIS data (see, e.g., the cases in Florida (Microdecisions, Inc. v. Skinner, 889 So. 2d 871 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2004)), California (County of Santa Clara v. Superior Court, 89 Cal. Rptr. 374 (Cal. Ct. App. 2009)), New York (City of New York v. Geodata Plus, LLC, 537 F. Supp. 2d 443 (E.D.N.Y. 2007)), and South Carolina (Seago v. Horry County, 663 S.E.2d 38 (S.C. 2008))). For a general discussion of the copyright status of government GIS data, see Edward A. Pisacreta & Jonathan P. Mollod, Licensing and Commercialization Issues for Geographic Data, 45 Les Nouvelles 1, 5 (2010).
• [2] Judicial opinions cannot be copyrighted. The Supreme Court in Banks v. Manchester, 128 U.S. 244, 9 S. Ct. 36, 32 L. Ed. 425 (1888) invalidated an asserted copyright by a private publisher, an Ohio citizen, for copyright in the state court reports, holding that any content written by a judge cannot be copyrighted because "[t]he whole work done by the judges constitutes the authentic exposition and interpretation of the law, which, binding every citizen, is free for publication to all, whether it is a declaration of unwritten law, or an interpretation of a constitution or a statute." See also Nash v. Lathrop, 142 Mass. 29, 35, 6 N.E. 559, 560 (1886) and Wheaton v. Peters, 33 U.S. 591, 668, 8 L. Ed. 1055 (1834). Only materials ancillary to the court opinion such as the "title-page, table of cases, head notes, statements of facts, arguments of counsel, and index" may be copyrighted. Callaghan v. Myers, 128 U.S. 617, 649, 9 S. Ct. 177, 185, 32 L. Ed. 547 (1888).