Oregon has sent cease and desist letters to Justia and Public.Resource.Org for posting copies of Oregon laws, known as the Oregon Revised Statutes. The notice states," The Oregon Revised Statutes is copyrighted material, the author and copyright owner of which is the Legislative Counsel Committee of the State of Oregon."

The state says that the text of the laws is not covered by copyright but the way the law is presented is protected by copyright (such as the numbering, the notes and annotations).

The letter goes on to state, "Revenue from the sale and licensing of that work product, both in print and database form, is dedicated by state statute to supporting the work necessary to compile and publish the Oregon Revised Statutes and to making the law accessible to the public."

Over at Techdirt Michael Masnick brings up a good point,"It’s difficult to see what Oregon could possibly gain in trying to force copies of its laws off of public resource legal sites."

The answer could be in the final paragraph of the letter which invites Justia "to inquire about terms for a license to display the Oregon Revised Statutes," on its Web site.

The tabloid published some of these photos without permission in a story about Curry’s children.

Curry’s lawsuit was about breach of copyright and privacy infringement. In a judgment delivered on 9 March, Curry’s claim for breach of copyright was upheld (although the privacy infringement part was not).

In a press release on 16 March, Creative Commons said this is the first known court decision involving a Creative Commons license:

“We are very happy with this decision as it demonstrates that the millions of creators who use creative commons licenses are effectively protected against abuses of their willingness to contribute to the commons,” said Paul Keller, Public Project Lead for Creative Commons in the Netherlands.

“This decision confirms that the Creative Commons licensing system is an effective way for content creators to manage their copyrights online,” said Lawrence Lessig, Creative Commons CEO & Chairman, “The decision should also serve as a timely reminder to those seeking to use content online, to respect the terms that apply to that content.”

Curry is less than impressed with the Dutch judge who delivered the judgment or, it seems, with Creative Commons. You can hear a sobering 30-minute commentary by Curry about this whole issue in DSC 351.

Still, it’s a landmark legal ruling for the credibility of Creative Commons.

Related posts:

• Content plagiarism – is extra exposure worth going along with it?
• The inadequacies of current copyright laws
• Copyright myths and creative common(s) sense

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Neville Hobson is the author of the popular NevilleHobson.com blog which focuses on business communication and technology.

Neville is currentlly the VP of New Marketing at Crayon. Visit Neville Hobson’s blog: NevilleHobson.com.