Victory for open use from the Legislative Counsel Committee

Last week, I headed to our state capital to testify before the Legislative Counsel Committee along with Pete Forsyth and Bart Massey.  As I mentioned in the post from last week, we were participating as public testimony in support of representatives from Public.Resource.org and Justia.org stating that the LCC should not enforce copyright on the Oregon Revised Statutes and other materials created by the state legislature and thusly removing the ability for citizens and organizations to quote passages, numbers, titles, annotations, etc.

Well, we ‘won’:  After testimony from PRO, Justia and the three of us, as well as careful and open deliberation, the Committee unanimously approved the motion to stop claiming copyright over the ORS and to discontinue the charges with Justia.

We wrote a detailed wrap up that I encourage you to read on the WikiProject Oregon blog.  We included details about the hearing itself as well as links to download testimonies and listen to the recordings.  Check it out!

Author: Amy Sample Ward

Amy Sample Ward is trainer, author, and community organizer focused on the intersections of technology and social change. Amy is also the CEO of NTEN, a nonprofit that supports organizations fulfilling their missions through the skillful and racially equitable use of technology.

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