Copyrights in US Government Materials
Sunday, March 9th, 2008
A blog on the Wired network reports an interesting story about a recruiting video used by the US Air Force. The blog, Threat Level, was sent a copy of the video by the Air Force itself. Threat Level uploaded the video to YouTube in order to share it with their readers, and received a thank you from the Air Force for helping to publicize it.
Then things got weird. Last Thursday, a law firm sent a DMCA take down notice (Digital Management of Copyrights Act) to YouTube, alleging that the poster did not have authority to post the copyrighted video.
Threat Level, no doubt scratching their heads till nearly raw over why the Air Force suddenly wants to the video pulled, points out that government produced works are not copyrighted, and also that the Air Force’s own website - one on which this very video plays - includes a statement that “Information presented on the Air Force Recruiting website is considered public information and may be distributed or copied. Use of appropriate byline/photo/image credits is requested.” I couldn’t find a separate statement specific to the video anywhere on the website.
The Threat Level post, along with a link to the letter sent to YouTube on behalf of the Air Force, is here.
But it is not quite so simple as Threat Level maintains (though my own head is raw from scratching over why the AF asked for the video to be publicized, and then got annoyed when it was). The general rule is in fact that material created by the government is not copyrightable, and is therefore available for use and reproduction without restriction. But there are some instances where a government owned work may in fact be protected by copyright. If a work is created by a non-government entity or person, so that the work is covered by copyright, the copyright owner can assign that copyright to the government, which then can act as any other copyright holder, granting or withholding permission to reproduce the work. So, for example, if a private company had created the video on spec, and then offered it to the AF, then the AF could hold a valid copyright by virtue of a transfer of that copyright. In most cases, though, the AF (or other government agency) would hire a company to produce videos like this on their behalf, effectively making them a “work-for-hire” which would result in the video being essentially created by the government agency and therefore not covered by copyright. But it could happen.
Secondly, even works produced by the government and therefore not covered by copyright, are not required to be released to the public. No law requires government agencies to release everything they do to the public, so it is possible that dissemination of a video would be improper even if the video was not covered by a copyright. Of course, that’s not the case with this video, since it has already been released to the public.
Bottom line is that not all government materials can be assumed to be free of copyright and other restrictions, but I’m puzzled as to why the video in question here is alleged to be under the copyright control of the AF. No doubt, we’ll hear more about this.
