Thanks for pointing that out Jim. I was just browsing around the site, but hadn't seen the copyright notice. I just submitted a Web form on the site about this issue and would suggest that others do the same. Without librarians and others being proactive in protecting the public domain, it will continue to be eroded.

Greetings,

While it's good to find this transition Web site, I must humbly request that you change the copyright statement on your site to clearly state that all information on the site is in the public domain. According to Copyright Law 17 U.S.C. § 105, "Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government."

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Best,

James Jacobs
Government Information Librarian
Stanford University

James, I'm so glad that you contacted them--what an excellent idea.

Just a note: yes, this website and the GAO transition page have been archived. I think it may be interesting to track any changes in these websites going forward, as well.

Starr,

I'm glad to know that Change.gov is being archived and changes tracked! Does the project have a procedure for dealing with pages on which copyright is claimed by a non-government entity as in this case? There are already some very interesting pages here including http://change.gov/agenda/iraq/ which speaks to permanent bases in Iraq and Congressional involvement (vs. "unitary executive" policies of the Bush Administration). With regard to the "Status of Forces Agreement":

Obama and Biden believe any Status of Forces Agreement, or any strategic framework agreement, should be negotiated in the context of a broader commitment by the U.S. to begin withdrawing its troops and forswearing permanent bases. Obama and Biden also believe that any security accord must be subject to Congressional approval. It is unacceptable that the Iraqi government will present the agreement to the Iraqi parliament for approval—yet the Bush administration will not do the same with the U.S. Congress. The Bush administration must submit the agreement to Congress or allow the next administration to negotiate an agreement that has bipartisan support here at home and makes absolutely clear that the U.S. will not maintain permanent bases in Iraq.

-jim

Starr, Jim,

Where can one access the archives of Change.gov? As of today, the entire Agenda section has been taken down.

I would like to read and save what was originally posted by the President-elect's team..

Thanks!

The transition website may actually be copyrighted. On that basis, I sent the following message to the webmaster:

Where is your policy and terms of service relating to intellectual property rights of the site owner, content contributors and content users?

Is the site copyright really "© 2008 by Obama-Biden Transition Project, a 501c(4) organization. All rights reserved." Perhaps you could consider a www.creativecommons.org license.

To see what a policy might include and how it is constructed, take a look at AARP's (also a 501c4) terms of service http://www.aarp.org/aarp/articles/terms_of_service.html

And you should also add to your notice, that your copyright is "Exclusive of U.S. Government works (Title 17 USC Sec 105)."

Bonnie Klein
Copyright Specialist
Defense Technical Information Center

I was thinking about writing the transition site and asking them to consider a Commons Commons license. Thanks for actually taking the time to do it.

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"And besides all that, what we need is a decentralized, distributed system of depositing electronic files to local libraries willing to host them." -- Daniel Cornwall, tipping his hat to Cato the Elder for the original quote.

I believe that 25% to 50% of government website content is subject to copyright. It depends on which agency and what the content is. US Patent & Trademark is probably 90% a "work of the US Gov." But the majority of content on NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory website is copyrighted by the FFRDC CalTech (www.jpl.nasa.gov).

Although this may seem nitpicky, please take care about using the terms “government works,” “government information,” and “government publications” interchangeably and synonymously when talking about copyrights. What follows is an excerpt from an article I've submitted to Searcher Magazine.

Title 17 USC §105 is a total of 37 words contained in one sentence with two clauses. The first clause states: “Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government.” The meaning of a “work of the United States Government” is the key to understanding the scope and limits of the provision. Unfortunately, 17 USC § 105 does not include or directly point to the definition found near the end of 17 USC § 101 which narrows Government works to those “prepared BY an officer or employee of the United States Government as part of that person's official duties.” In other words, only government works created BY federal government employees ON THE JOB are not subject to copyright protection.

The misconception that all government information and publications are not copyrighted is rooted in the 1909 Copyright Act which provided: “No copyright shall subsist in any publication of the U.S. Government or any reprint in whole or in part thereof.” The 1976 revision of the of the 1909 law substituted the word “work” for “publication” and added the definition to further clarify the shift of the government from printer to author.

While the first clause of 17 USC § 105 is a prohibition on Government copyright ownership in works by government employees, the second allows Government copyright ownership in the works of others... “but the government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise.” It seems to me that folks stop and put a period after the first clause. The disregard of second clause gives rise to the erroneous belief that the U.S. Government cannot own copyrights. If you check the U.S. Copyright Office Registration records and you'll find hundreds of federal agency copyright registrations with notice: © (Year) United States Government as represented by the Secretary of (Department). Agencies may choose to exercise all or some rights in such works.

Now we've done it! We've caused a change...and apparently confusion and uncertainty.

There's a new notice which is even less enlightened than the first: "Content copyright © 2008. All rights reserved." By whom, they no longer say.

I believe I read on Michelle Malkin's site that change.gov was started by a fundraising arm of the Obama campaign and is actively collecting names and emails for future fundraising efforts. Not exactly appropriate on a .gov site either. I myself blogged about change.gov before the agenda material was removed and copied and pasted alot of material despite the copyright warning due to my belief, as well, that .gov sites are in the public domain. Glad I did since they appear to be hiding something now.

I've just been wondering how they were accepted for a .gov address to begin with? I'm noticing on Wikipedia (not the best source, perhaps) that "elected bodies of officials" can apply, at least at lower levels of government -- is that perhaps the justification for them being given a .gov domain?

I'm a web designer and have set up dozens of sites. Every time you just put the copyright notice at the bottom. This is probably just an oversight.

That being said, the transition team is not technically a part of the federal government. Thus I don't think they are under any obligation to make their content public domain. Their ownership of a .gov domain does not necessarily mean it is a federal site; there are many .gov sites that are not federal (all state-run websites come to mind).