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Copyright Your Legal Pleadings?
Posted by Raul Ruiz on Thursday, November 21 @ 22:54:12 EST
Contributed by brian
Copyright
brian writes "Law.com is running an article about a New York law firm that is sick of finding a good cause of action and then having sections of the pleadings "lifted" by other attorneys across the country. Their solution...copyright the pleading. Including registering it wit the copyright office. The article can be found here.

While I agree with their frustration, I fail to see how this benefits anyone but them. The point of copyright was to promote the useful arts and sciences and to give authors an incentive to create. In this case, the incentive to create is the client footing the bill, so whether they have the copyright or not they are still going to produce the work. Technically, wouldn't this be a work for hire anyway, meaning that the law firm has no copyright in the material?
It will be interesting to see the effect this has on the legal community. "
 
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Re: Copyright Your Legal Pleadings? (Score: 0)
by Anonymous (Name Withheld on Advice of Counsel) on Friday, November 22 @ 09:48:06 EST
Pretty hilarious, eh?

The scary thing is that, even given idea/expression [www.faculty.piercelaw.edu], the recent building code case [www.contracts.ogc.doc.gov] and the Motorola case [floridalawfirm.com], I'm not sure a legal brief doesn't clear the standard hurdles for copyright registration. So this actually passes the straight face test. I'd be interested to hear someone who disagrees.

That said, it is still hilarious.


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