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Federally commissioned works do not 'retain copyright'. They don't have copyright _at all_ (by law). As such, there is no legal basis for restricting copying of
by bdonlan 15y ago
Federally commissioned works do not 'retain copyright'. They don't have copyright _at all_ (by law). As such, there is no legal basis for restricting copying of such works. Of course, this includes the IEEE - they can republish all they want, they just can't stop anyone else from republishing, because the copyright never existed in the first place.
- mturmon 15y agoI produce work as part of an FFRDC. The lawyer-derived boilerplate I must put on my work says (in part) "Copyright 2011". But, it's OK to republish the work in any way, including as part of a public web site or government report. I interpreted this as meaning that the government retains copyright, but that may be the wrong legal phrasing. The point is that the work is freely available.
- thyrsus 15y agoLawyers can make mistakes, however, it might have to do with non-U.S. rights or the rights of incorporated material: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Copyright_status_of_work_by_the_U.S._government https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Copyright_sta...
- mturmon 15y agoThanks, this clears it up. The discrepancy is that I'm a researcher at a national lab, but not an employee of the US government. There are lots of such people. Thus, copyright does seem to apply to work done by me. I know from experience that the publication people at my lab will arm-twist to ensure copyright is not retained by an external publisher, like Springer or IEEE, and that the work remains openly available.