During a recent trip to Washington, D.C., I discovered that the reflecting pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the National World War II Memorial had lost a bit of its luster. From inside the Lincoln Memorial, my gaze at the National Mall was interrupted by fencing, heavy equipment, and an empty pool.
However, an aerial view of Washington, D.C. from Google Maps provided no hint of the ongoing construction. So, based on some online research, I wanted to determine when the aerial photo used by Google was taken, as well as whether Google, Microsoft/Bing or Yahoo offered the most up-to-date maps.
Last week, the State of Oregon Legislative Counsel Committee sent Justia a notice of copyright infringement and demand to cease and desist. In its letter, Dexter Johnson, the Legislative Counsel, asked us to remove a copy of the Oregon Revised Statutes stored on our servers (or pay a licensing fee) by April 30, 2008. The letter claimed copyright on many parts of the Oregon Revised Statutes:
[T]he Committee … claim[s] a copyright in the arrangement and subject-matter compilation of Oregon statutory law, the prefatory and explanatory notes, the leadlines and numbering for each statutory section, the tables the index and annotations and such other incidents as are work product of the Committee in the compilation and publication of Oregon law.
During a recent trip to Washington, D.C., I discovered that the reflecting pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the National World War II Memorial had lost a bit of its luster. From inside the Lincoln Memorial, my gaze at the National Mall was interrupted by fencing, heavy equipment, and an empty pool.
