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"We the people" source released

Posted Aug 24, 2012 2:53 UTC (Fri) by jhoblitt (subscriber, #77733)
Parent article: "We the people" source released

Since when can uncle sam hold a copyright? (With a copyright needed to apply a copyright license)

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Posted Aug 24, 2012 2:57 UTC (Fri) by imgx64 (guest, #78590) [Link]

From the Github page:

This project constitutes a work of the United States Government and is not subject to domestic copyright protection under 17 USC § 105.

The project utilizes code licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License and therefore is licensed under GPL v2 or later.

"We the people" source released

Posted Aug 24, 2012 3:36 UTC (Fri) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]

"Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise. - 17 USC S105

Further, something doesn't need to be copyrightable under domestic law to be considered copyrightable under Berne. The US government claims the right to assert copyright over its works outside the US.

"We the people" source released

Posted Aug 24, 2012 3:36 UTC (Fri) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link]

It really depends on what one means by "Hold a Copyright". The have been ways that works have been "copyright" of the United States since at least the Reagan administration and probably a lot longer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_work_by_...

Most of the stuff I have seen was stuff done by contractors and then transferred to the US Government.

"We the people" source released

Posted Aug 24, 2012 14:22 UTC (Fri) by david.a.wheeler (subscriber, #72896) [Link]

Uncle Sam holds lots of copyrights. When US (federal) government employees create works as part of their official duties, their work is not subject to copyright in the US. But most software for Uncle Sam is written by contractors, who aren't subject to that law.

For details, see my paper: Publicly Releasing Open Source Software Developed for the U.S. Government, Journal of Software Technology, February 2011, Vol. 14, Number 1.