> Isn’t the US government not allowed to own any IP? I’m pretty sure the Constitution says so. Not exactly. Anything created by the government and it's employe

> Isn’t the US government not allowed to own any IP? I’m pretty sure the Constitution says so. Not exactly. Anything created by the government and it's employees is automatically public domain (so, no copyright), but the government can and does get copyrights assigned to it[0] all the time for things created by vendors and contractors (this is negotiated in advance). So, the government can own copyrights, if it acquires them. [0] sometimes the US government just gets a perpetual, worldwide, yadda, yadda license instead. Typically not sublicensable, though. This can be a really sweet deal for the vendor, and really annoying for the public, particularly when it comes to data sets created with public funds.