RT POLLOCK spoke thusly to: DICK ROEBELT
RP> EF>We have a lot of Legal information that you can obtain.
RP> EF>A lot of it is free to download.Barrister's Legal Files.
RP> DR> Can we assume you have secured [copyright] permission to post 
RP> DR> those?  
RP>Are you suggesting that the Laws made by a government FOR the
RP>people are copyrighted ?
   Since when is Barister's a gvt. (public domain) publication?
   I know several folks who took the [paid] course and _purchased_ the 
disks and other paraphernalia
RP>Who/what should this guy do ? I mean, I agree that if he's scanning
RP>actual case law at his site that there would be someone/something
RP>from which he could obtain permission to carry on (since there are
RP>various professional publications that print these abounding), but
RP>if he's simply providing an information service to the public about
RP>what the law is (State, Federal or International), then I fail to
RP>see your point.
   Evidently you don't know that Barrister's (among others) is a point 
of view concerning the law and its applicability from the Patriot 
perspective.  I have not heard that their materials were released into 
the public domain.  Ergo, their copyright protections are in full 
force.
RP> Who owns case law ? The government, the respective jurispudence 
RP>of a State or Province (ie - the Bar) or some legal society ? 
   That is a very good question and not very easy to answer.  At least 
not after reading a tract addressing same just about an hour ago.  
Since it IS relative to this echo (dealing with work and databases, 
some of which I know are done by home-office folks), I am going to 
post it in its entirety in a subsequent message with this mail packet.
RP>Is Law considered "intellectual property" ?
   No.  But the compilation of law (with additions) most certainly is.  
A good example would be the publication of annotated statutes.
RP>Would it make any difference if he were a practising lawyer and
RP>decided to open up his own office's resources to the Public, noting
RP>credit to the software publisher as a curtesy ? I mean,
RP>technically, if his office already owns a(n unlimited User) LAN
RP>license to such software, then would he not merely be enlarging the
RP>LAN's "workspace" ? What would the circumstances become if he were
RP>to charge an access fee to each dial-up caller to that same, well,
RP>"database", I wonder ? (Agreed, such a move by any Legal Beagle
RP>might be tantamount to a cutting of the (fiscal) jugular: I mean,
RP>if everything were so open, where would such a lawyer then find 
RP>his\her business ?)
   A legal question for sure.  A layman's opinion would be that the 
copyright laws and [any] license agreement issued by the publisher 
would prevail in a court of law on the issue.
   Dick
   TheMerc@Juno.com
We CAN'T sell out to the Japs, Clinton GAVE us to NATO.
* CMPQwk 1.42 84 *
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