> Most of the work done by the US government is not done by civil servants but by contractors, and the contractors hold the copyright. That tidbit of copyright

> Most of the work done by the US government is not done by civil servants but by contractors, and the contractors hold the copyright. That tidbit of copyright law is not as useful as you might expect. Correct, but I figured most people here would not be interested in the details of government contracting regulations. I actually do know some things about it. If the work is done by contractors (as most work for the government is), then it depends on the contract. Usually the key part is which "data rights" clause is included in the contract from the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and/or FAR supplement, which can be modified in various ways in a specific contract. Papers and software get special complicated additional rules. In any case, my point was simply that "eliminating copyright in certain cases to serve the public interest" is not a new idea - there is already some existing practice.