the Attorney General's Public Records and Meetings Manual; now a University of Oregon Economics professor, Bill Harbaugh, has posted the manual online, giving the Attorney General's office a heads-up. It will be interesting to see the results.

I should note that the Copyright Act specifically provides that works of the federal government are in the public domain, and longstanding copyright law decisions say the same about state court decisions, but in principle the Copyright Act does not preclude other state agencies from owning copyrights in works that they've created (though it's possible that the fair use doctrine might authorize pretty broad copying of at least some such works). I take it that Prof. Harbaugh's argument is that the Attorney General's office shouldn't assert copyright, not that it is legally precluded by copyright law from so asserting it. And I take it that he is counting on the Attorney General's good judgment and good political sense, and not on any legal doctrine, to protect him. Jeff Mapes, a columnist at the Oregonian, reports further; thanks also to Mark Thoma for the pointer.