About

The copyright status is our assessment of the current copyright status of government documents in the state. Red indicates that documents are presumptively copyrightable, green indicates that documents are presumptively public domain, and colors in-between indicate a tendency to one or the other where the governing law is not clear.

The Openness Score is a quantification of all of the indicators we've identified that a state will or will not assert a copyright interest in their public records. We've calculated the score by quantifying the arguments and factors related to the copyright status of government documents in that state – the same arguments and factors we describe in the text. These factors are based on the factors that courts have considered when deciding the copyright status of government documents in the states that have done so (take a look at New York, Florida, California, and South Carolina to see how it turned out). The openness score is the z-score of that quantification – it measures the number of standard deviations a state is above or below the average across all states.

In some cases, the openness score will not match the listed copyright status; this occurs where there is binding law on the copyright, but the underlying factors go in a different direction. This could mean that the dominant law would be overturned if examined by a court, or it could reflect a deliberate change of direction within the state government. The openness score is an attempt to measure probability within a murky legal landscape, and as such should not be taken as a guide to legal action. Where there is binding, on-point law on the subject, that law controls.

Binding, on-point law, either in the form of a statute or court decision, is definitive law that directly addresses the copyright status of government documents in that state. Where binding, on-point law exists, it is "the law of the land," and any additional information is supplementary.

Advisory sources most often take the form of state attorney general opinions or advisory opinions from an officially established advisory council. These opinions are usually persuasive, rather than binding, and are seen as authoritative statements of what the advisory body believes to be the correct interpretation of the law. They do not have the force of law, and can be overruled by a court, but are often a useful source of guidance when the law is unclear.

"Related law" is anything that doesn't directly answer the question "are state documents copyrighted?", but that does have some bearing on the issue. It could be a statute which implies a conclusion, a court case that touches upon but ultimately doesn't resolve it, or anything else that might be relevant.

Every state in which a court has examined this issue has done so by interpreting the state's public records law (see 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))). Because of that, we've tried to provide some basic information about the public records law in each state: where the statute is and how long it's been around, any overt relationship to copyright in the statute, and whether it restricts the allowable uses of a record once it's been requested. In particular, if a state restricts the use of the record after it's been received, it's more likely that they are assuming that they retain the rights to it.

Specifics and examples are provided to show what the state actually does with its documents. Many states have statutes that authorize a particular government entity to copyright their work, and those appear here, along with any indication of the copyright status of a particular type of document from other sources of state law. Additionally, if documents or agencies have a particularly clear statement of their stance on their copyright interests, we've included it here. Please note, however, that the examples are neither comprehensive nor necessarily up-to-date: check with specific state entities to determine the status of their records.

This section of the website contains anything we found relevant which didn't fit elsewhere. Some things you might find here include:

Policy statements from state libraries or archives – most state government documents eventually make their way to a state archives, making state archivists frequently very familiar with these issues. If a state archive or library has clearly stated their interpretation of the copyright status of documents in their collection, we've tried to identify it here.

Legal statements about the physical ownership of government documents or records – many states have instances in their law where they refer to records as "property of the state," and many additionally have laws which govern the physical custody of records and prohibit their unauthorized use, transfer, or destruction. These laws, however, do not differentiate between the physical ownership of the records and the intellectual property right in their contents. It is entirely possible that the state could own and restrict the usage of the physical copies of these records (and have very good reasons for doing so, such as ensuring the continued preservation of the records) while also placing the contents of the records in the public domain. A statement that a record is the "property of the state," therefore, while suggestive, is not dispositive of its copyright status.