September 11, 1995

 

 

Mr. Thomas E. Walsh, II
Assistant County Attorney
County of Rockland Department of Law
Allison-Parris County Office Building
New City, NY 10956

The staff of the Committee on Open Government is authorized to issue advisory opinions. The ensuing staff advisory opinion is based solely upon the information presented in your correspondence.

Dear Mr. Walsh:

As you are aware, I have received your letter of August 22. Please accept my apologies for the delay in response.

In your capacity as Assistant County Attorney for Rockland County, you wrote that the County Department of Planning has questioned whether maps, drawings, plans and the like that bear the seal of professional engineers and architects, for example, are subject to the Freedom of Information Law, particularly since some of those documents "bear a legend stating that they may not be copied in whole or in part." You have asked whether the documents are disclosable. If they are available, due to their size, you indicated that they must be forwarded to an "outside entity" for reproduction. It is your assumption that the Department could "charge the applicant the cost of having the map reproduced", and you sought my opinion concerning that issue as well.

In this regard, I offer the following comments.

First, the Freedom of Information Law pertains to agency records, and §86(4) of the Law defines the term "record" expansively to mean:

"any information kept, held, filed, produced, reproduced by, with or for an agency or the state legislature, in any physical form whatsoever including, but not limited to, reports, statements, examinations, memoranda, opinions, folders, files, books, manuals, pamphlets, forms, papers, designs, drawings, maps, photos, letters, microfilms, computer tapes or discs, rules, regulations or codes."

Based on the foregoing, architects plans and similar or related documents in my view clearly constitute "records" subject to rights conferred by the Freedom of Information Law.

Second, as a general matter, the Freedom of Information Law is based upon a presumption of access. Stated differently, all records of an agency are available, except to the extent that records or portions thereof fall within one or more grounds for denial appearing in §87(2)(a) through (i) of the Law.

It has been held that a promise or assertion of confidentiality cannot be upheld, unless a statute specifically confers confidentiality. In Gannett News Service v. Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services [415 NYS 2d 780 (1979)], a state agency guaranteed confidentiality to school districts participating in a statistical survey concerning drug abuse. The court determined that the promise of confidentiality could not be sustained, and that the records were available, for none of the grounds for denial appearing in the Freedom of Information Law could justifiably be asserted. In a decision rendered by the Court of Appeals, it was held that a state agency's:

"long-standing promise of confidentiality to the intervenors is irrelevant to whether the requested documents fit within the Legislature's definition of 'record' under FOIL. The definition does not exclude or make any reference to information labeled as 'confidential' by the agency; confidentiality is relevant only when determining whether the record or a portion of it is exempt..." [Washington Post v. Insurance Department, 61 NY 2d 557, 565 (1984)].

In short, I do not believe that an assertion of confidentiality would serve to remove from public rights of access records that would otherwise be available. Similarly, whether the professional who prepared the document or the owner of real property described in the document consents to permit access is, in my view, irrelevant; if a record is available under the Freedom of Information Law, the professional or owner as the case may be would not have the ability to control disclosure.

Third, access to plans and surveys that are marked with the seal of an architect or engineer has been the subject of several questions and substantial research. Professional engineers and architects are licensed by the Board of Regents (see respectively, Articles 145 and 147 of the Education Law,). While §7307 of the Education Law requires that an architect have a seal, and that state and local officials charged with the enforcement of provisions relating to the construction or alteration of buildings cannot accept plans or specifications that do not bear such a seal, I am unaware of any statute that would prohibit the inspection of such records under the Freedom of Information Law. Some have contended that an architect's seal, for example, represents the equivalent of a copyright. Having discussed the matter with numerous officials, including officials of the appropriate licensing boards, the seal does not serve as a copyright, nor does it restrict the right to inspect and copy.

Additional considerations become relevant if the records in question bear a copyright, and the question, in my view, involves the effect of a copyright appearing on a document. In order to offer an appropriate response, I have discussed the matter with a representative of the U.S. Copyright Office and the Office of Information and Privacy at the U.S. Department of Justice, which advises federal agencies regarding the federal Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C. §552), the federal counterpart of the New York Freedom of Information Law.

It is noted that the Federal Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. §101 et seq., appears to have supplanted the early case law concerning the Act prior to its amendment in 1976. Further, I am unaware of any judicial decisions rendered in New York concerning the relationship between the Copyright Act and the New York Freedom of Information Law.

Useful to the inquiry is a federal court decision in which the history of copyright protection was discussed, and in which reference was made to notes of House Committee on the Judiciary (Report No. 94-1476) referring to the scope and intent of the revised Act. Specifically, it was stated by the court that:

"The power to provide copyright protection is delegated to the Congress by the United States Constitution. Article 1, section 8, clause 8, of the Constitution grants to Congress the power 'to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.'

Copyright did not exist at common law but was created by statute enacted pursuant to this Constitutional authority. See Mazer v. Stein, 347 U.S. 201, 74 S.Ct. 460, 98 L.ed. 630 (1954); see also MCA, Inc., v. Wilson, 425 F.Supp. 443, 455 (S.D.N.Y. 1976); Mura v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc., 245 F.Supp. 587, 589 (S.D.N.Y. 1965), and cases cited therein.

Prior to January 1, 1978, the effective date of the revised Copyright Act of 1976, there existed a dual system of copyright protection which had been in effect since the first federal copyright statute in 1790. Under this dual system, unpublished works enjoyed perpetual copyright protection under state common law, while published works were copyrightable under the prevailing federal statute. The new Act was intended to accomplish 'a fundamental and significant change in the present law by adopting a single system of Federal statutory copyright... (to replace the) anachronistic, uncertain, impractical, and highly complicated dual system.' H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476; 94th Cong. 2d Sess. 129-130, reprinted in [1976] 5 U.S. Code Cong. & Ad. News 5745. This goal was effectuated through the bed-rock provision of 17 U.S.C. subsection 301, which brought unpublished works within the scope of federal copyright law and preempted state statutory and common law rights equivalent to copyright. Id. at 5745-47. Thus, under subsection 301(a), Congress provided that Title 17 of the United States Code, the Federal Copyright Act, preempts all state and common law rights pertaining to all causes of action which arise subsequent to the effective date of the 1976 Act, i.e., January 1, 1978:

(a) On and after January 1, 1978, all legal or equitable rights that are equivalent to any of the exclusive rights within the general scope of copyright as specified in Section 106 in works of authorship that are fixed in a tangible medium of expression and come within the subject matter of copyright as specified in sections 102 and 103, whether published or unpublished, are governed exclusively by this title. Thereafter, no person is entitled to any such right or equivalent right in any such work under the common law or statutes of any State." [Meltzer v. Zoller, 520 F.Supp. 847, 853 (1981)]

Based upon the foregoing, "common law" copyright appears to be a concept that has been rejected and replaced with the current statutory scheme embodied in the revised Federal Copyright Act.

In view of the language of the Copyright Act, case law and discussions with a representative of the Copyright Office, it is clear in my opinion that architectural plans and similar documents may be copyrighted.

To be copyrighted, 17 U.S.C. §401(b) states that a work must bear a "notice", which:

"shall consist of the following three elements:

(1) the symbol c (the letter C in a circle), or the word 'Copyright,' or the abbreviation 'Copr.'; and

(2) the year of the first publication of the work; in the case of compilations or derivative works incorporating previously published material, the year date of the first publication of the compilation or derivative work is sufficient. The year date may be omitted where a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work, with accompanying text matter, if any, is reproduced in or on greeting cards, postcards, stationery, jewelry, dolls, toys, or any useful articles; and

(3) the name of the owner of copyright in the work, or an abbreviation by which the name can be recognized, or a generally known alternative designation of the owner."

If those elements do not appear on a work, I do not believe that it would be copyrighted, and that it could be reproduced in response to a request made under the Freedom of Information Law.

Assuming that a work is subject to copyright protection, such a work that includes the notice described above is copyrighted. It is noted that such a work may "at any time during the subsistence of copyright" [17 U.S.C. §408(a)] be registered with the Copyright Office. No action for copyright infringement can be initiated until a copyright claim has been registered. As I understand the Act, if a work bears a copyright and is reproduced without the consent of the copyright holder, the holder may nonetheless register the work and later bring an action for copyright infringement.

In terms of the ability of a citizen to use an access law to assert the right to reproduce copyrighted material, the issue has been considered by the U.S. Department of Justice with respect to copyrighted materials, and its analysis as it pertains to the federal Freedom of Information Act is, in my view, pertinent to the issue as it arises under the state Freedom of Information Law.

The initial aspect of its review involved whether the exception to rights of access analogous to §87(2)(a) of the Freedom of Information Law requires that copyrighted materials be withheld. The cited provision states that an agency may withhold records that are "specifically exempted from disclosure by state or federal statute." Virtually the same language constitutes a basis for withholding in the federal Act [5 U.S.C. 552(b)(3)]. In the fall 1983 edition of FOIA Update, a publication of the Office of Information and Privacy at the U.S. Department of Justice, it was stated that:

"On its face, the Copyright Act simply cannot be considered a 'nondisclosure' statute, especially in light of its provision permitting full public inspection of registered copyrighted documents at the Copyright Office [see 17 U.S.C. 3705(b)]."

Since copyrighted materials are available for inspection, I agree with the conclusion that records bearing a copyright could not be characterized as being "specifically exempted from disclosure...by...statute."

The next step of the analysis involves the Justice Department's consideration of the federal Act's exception (exemption 4) analogous to §87(2)(d) of the Freedom of Information Law in conjunction with 17 U.S.C. §107, which codifies the doctrine of "fair use". Section 87(2)(d) permits an agency to withhold records that "are trade secrets or are submitted to an agency by a commercial enterprise or derived from information obtained from a commercial enterprise and which if disclosed would cause substantial injury to the competitive position of the subject enterprise." Under §107, copyrighted work may be reproduced "for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research" without infringement of the copyright. Further, the provision describes the factors to be considered in determining whether a work may be reproduced for a fair use, including "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work" [17 U.S.C. §107(4)].

According to the Department of Justice, the most common basis for the assertion of the federal Act's "trade secret" exception involves "a showing of competitive harm," and in the context of a request for a copyrighted work, the exception may be invoked "whenever it is determined that the copyright holder's market for his work would be adversely affected by FOIA disclosure" (FOIA Update, supra). As such, it was concluded that the trade secret exception:

"stands as a viable means of protecting commercially valuable copyrighted works where FOIA disclosure would have a substantial adverse effect on the copyright holder's potential market. Such use of Exemption 4 is fully consonant with its broad purpose of protecting the commercial interests of those who submit information to government... Moreover, as has been suggested, where FOIA disclosure would have an adverse impact on 'the potential market for or value of [a] copyrighted work,' 17 U.S.C. §107(4), Exemption 4 and the Copyright Act actually embody virtually congruent protection, because such an adverse economic effect will almost always preclude a 'fair use' copyright defense...Thus, Exemption 4 should protect such materials in the same instances in which copyright infringement would be found" (id.).

Conversely, it was suggested that when disclosure of a copyrighted work would not have a substantial adverse effect on the potential market of the copyright holder, the trade secret exemption could not appropriately be asserted. Further, "[g]iven that the FOIA is designed to serve the public interest in access to information maintained by government," it was contended that "disclosure of nonexempt copyrighted documents under the Freedom of Information act should be considered a 'fair use'" (id.).

In my opinion, due to the similarities between the federal Freedom of Information Act and the New York Freedom of Information Law, the analysis by the Justice Department could properly be applied when making determinations regarding the reproduction of copyrighted materials maintained by entities of government in New York. In sum, if reproduction of copyrighted architectural plans and similar records would "cause substantial injury to the competitive position of the subject enterprise," i.e., the holder of the copyright, in conjunction with §87(2)(d) of the Freedom of Information Law, it would appear that an agency could preclude reproduction of the work. On the other hand, if reproduction of the work would not result in substantial injury to the competitive position of the copyright holder, it appears that the work would be available for copying under the Freedom of Information Law.

The only other potential basis for withholding would involve records that include reference to alarms, security systems and the like. In those circumstances, it is possible that §87(2)(f) might be asserted. That provision enables an agency to withhold records insofar as disclosure "would endanger the life or safety of any person."

Lastly, under §87(1)(b)(iii) of the Freedom of Information Law, if a record is greater than nine by fourteen inches in size or cannot be photocopied, an agency may charge based on the actual cost of reproduction. Therefore, I agree with your assumption and believe that the Department could charge based on the charge imposed by the outside entity, as well as any other actual cost, such as postage or transportation. I hope that I have been of assistance. Should any further questions arise, please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely,

 

Robert J. Freeman
Executive Director

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