August 11, 2009 - 2:45am
Edmond Connor, a US lawyer of California law firm Connor, Fletcher and Williams, has claimed that copyright is infringed when the California Courts hand over submissions to a commercial publisher. The lawyer says that the US courts` behavior undermines the hundreds of hours of work put into submissions.
Besides, Connor has written to California's Chief Justice Ronald George and its administrative director of courts, William Vickrey, to demand that they stop passing submissions to legal publishers LexisNexis and Westlaw.
"To my knowledge the Supreme Court's practice of turning all appellate briefs over to Westlaw and Lexis has never been publicly disclosed and I believe that few, if any, attorneys in California know anything about this arrangement," he wrote. "The unrestricted distribution of briefs to Westlaw and Lexis directly aids them in infringing the copyrights held by the attorneys who authored those briefs."
Furthermore, Connor proposed a system which would allow lawyers to control whether or not their briefs were sent to the publishing companies and would enable them to share in earnings for those that were. One of the lawyers at his firm researched whether or not copyright was infringed by the legal publishers and concluded that it was, he said.
"The authors of briefs filed with the California Courts hold valid, enforceable copyrights in their briefs, and... Lexis and Westlaw have engaged in massive copyright infringement by copying and distributing those briefs for profit without seeking the copyright holders' consent," he wrote.
Besides, Connor has written to California's Chief Justice Ronald George and its administrative director of courts, William Vickrey, to demand that they stop passing submissions to legal publishers LexisNexis and Westlaw.
"To my knowledge the Supreme Court's practice of turning all appellate briefs over to Westlaw and Lexis has never been publicly disclosed and I believe that few, if any, attorneys in California know anything about this arrangement," he wrote. "The unrestricted distribution of briefs to Westlaw and Lexis directly aids them in infringing the copyrights held by the attorneys who authored those briefs."
Furthermore, Connor proposed a system which would allow lawyers to control whether or not their briefs were sent to the publishing companies and would enable them to share in earnings for those that were. One of the lawyers at his firm researched whether or not copyright was infringed by the legal publishers and concluded that it was, he said.
"The authors of briefs filed with the California Courts hold valid, enforceable copyrights in their briefs, and... Lexis and Westlaw have engaged in massive copyright infringement by copying and distributing those briefs for profit without seeking the copyright holders' consent," he wrote.