No copyright or access fees for public records

Jason Geary, Court: No Royalties For Public Records, The Ledger (of Lakeland, Florida), December 12, 2004. Excerpt: 'A Lakeland appeals court has ruled that an online real estate company can continue to use property appraiser records for profit without paying royalties to the government that created them. Open government advocates are calling the decision a big win....MicroDecisions, an Orlandobased company, filed a lawsuit in 2002 against Collier County Property Appraiser Abe Skinner. MicroDecisions gathers real estate data for its Web site, where customers can purchase plats, maps and property value information. Skinner claimed records created in his office were copyrighted under federal law and would only allow MicroDecisions to use them for profit if they agreed to pay royalties to his office. "If the court had gone the other way, virtually any formerly public record could have been subject to copyright," said lawyer Jonathan D. Kaney Jr. of Daytona Beach, who represented MicroDecisions. Kaney, who also provides legal services to the First Amendment Foundation, said the case could have easily become "the death of public records as we know it." Law enforcement agencies and school districts could claim reports generated "with a smidge of creativity" were copyrighted and skirt Florida's open records laws, Kaney said.' (Thanks to BNA Internet Law News.)