Attention to detail has never been one of Team Kimberlin’s strong suits. This post about how One of These Things is Not Like The Others dealt with Bill Schmalfeldt’s copyright problem resulting from one of his cut-and-paste books.

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Two of the items shown above are from genuine U. S. District Court documents and are in the public domain. One is from a computer file used to create a document filed with a court, but it is not the court document itself. It is not in the public domain.

Can you tell which is which?

Hint: Look for the Clerk’s acceptance stamps and the PACER legends across the the top of the real court documents.

UPDATE—Here’s the significance of the above lesson. If a copyrighted work is included in a court paper, the court document may be reproduced with the copyrighted material included. However, the copyrighted material is not in the public domain, so it can only reproduced without infringement in the context of the public record. (Aside: The entire first issue of Action Comics was reproduced in a court filing. Guess what kind of lawsuit one would face if one published that material outside of the context of the related court filing without getting the permission of the copyright holder. You don’t tug on Superman’s cape.)

The Cabin Boy™ has included material from Hogewash! in his latest book that does not appear to be from what he filed with the court but from copies of the computer file(s) used create what he filed. If that be the case, he has again infringed multiple copyrights.

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One of the Gentle Readers left this as a comment to the original post—