[10322] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
government agencies and public documents
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sean Donelan)
Fri Feb 18 20:23:37 1994
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 1994 19:22:59 -0600 (CST)
From: Sean Donelan <SEAN@sdg.dra.com>
To: com-priv@psi.com
>I am reminded of some "free stuff" of which you should be aware. The US
>government can not (yet) hold copyright on works it produces. Accordingly,
>when government agencies develop software it often ends up in the public
>domain.
This may be true of U.S. Federal stuff, but some states seem to be taking
a different approach. Missouri, one of many states, seems to view government
records as a nifty way to raise revenue. For example, the Missouri has
decided that the "Revised statutes of the state of Missouri" are *NOT*
public records.
And, for a lot of government records, you no longer even have the option
of going down to the state capital and looking through the paper records
yourself. The Missouri legislature installed a new computer system, and
no longer has public paper records. To use the state's computer requires
a $800 "account setup and programming fee."
Welcome to the Information Superhighway, Toll booth ahead.
--
Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO
Domain: sean@dra.com, Voice: (Work) +1 314-432-1100
