n. Indications clearly are that the Trial Lawyers, who had contributed cash to Paine's previous campaign, would turn over Parker's research report to Paine.
b. Critical Issue. Parker would not be donating anything to Paine's campaign. He would be selling his services which, if he wishes, he could sell directly to Paine. It is difficult to see how he could incur any criminal liability by selling those services to the Trial Lawyers. Because of a quirk in the state statute the Democratic Party was exempt from the $500 limit but The Trial Lawyers who were not might have a problem under the referenced statute but that is not Parker's concern.
c. Legal Rule. Parker has no legal exposure under the Florida campaign expenditure law.
Since 1976, the federal Copyright Statute, 17 U.S.C. sec. 101 et seq., preempts state copyright law in all essential respects. The general rule is that the author of a work is the owner of the intellectual property or copyright in it, absent special circumstances as provided in the Copyright Statute. The broad legal issue in this case is whether Parker's sale of the research report on Paine would infringe any copyright owned by the Jackson Campaign. To answer that question, a number of subsidiary issues must be addressed.
a-b. Was the research report copyrightable? Relevant facts.
The research report was almost entirely a compilation of data available in various public records, newspaper and other media reports. The direct mail postcards were entirely Parker's own creation. The copyright law protects original tangible written expressions, including rearrangements of existing data. 'Originality' means "only that the work owes its origin to the author --i.e., that the work is independently created rather than copied from other works." Reader's Digest Ass'n v. Conservative Digest, Inc., 821 F.2d 800, 806 (D.C. Cir. 1987). Parker's research report meets this test.
Was the research report a w...