 I'll switch to testify. Okay, we're gonna move into work session now. I would ask that, could you try to get her on the phone while council, could you try to get her on the phone? I'd like to ask council, Dexter Johnson, legislative council, I know you've had opportunity to reflect and research on this issue. And do you have a recommendation for the legislative council committee at this time on this copyright issue that's properly before the committee? Thank you, Mr. Chair. And let me begin by frame working what it is you will be acting on. ORS 171.275 Statutorily authorizes the committee to, but does not require the committee to copyright materials, copyright the organized statute, those parts of the organized statute Thank you. that are capable of being copyrighted. And that has been the position of the committee since 1953. However, in light of recent technological developments, in light of what the witnesses have described today, well, and in light of the changes in copyright law coming out of the feist decision that witnesses have described. And also one other thing you should note, because of the complexity of describing what it is you're copyrighting and the considerable public interest in having open access to the law, it is the office's recommendation that you going forward to disclaim that copyright and allow the ORS to be available publicly both continuing to sell the printed volumes, but otherwise available to the public without copyright restriction. Recognize representative Dave Hunt. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So to get a motion on the table for discussion consistent with that recommendation, I move that the legislative council committee disclaim all copyright in the organized statutes and direct the legislative council to take no action to enforce any claim of copyright in the organized statutes. All right, we have before us a motion that reflects the recommendation legislative council. It's now time for us to have a discussion. Any discussion representative Jenny Burdick, please. Senator Jenny Burdick, I'm sorry. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will support this motion. I think it's a good motion, but it did occur to me some of the discussion was about the taxpayer paying for the ORS or whether we're gonna be getting, whether we're doing right by the taxpayer on this. And it occurred to me as I listened to some of the discussion of how this material is gonna be used on some of these sites. It is a legislator who represents 115,000 people. It will be very helpful to me to be able to go into a database and in a subject area I'm drafting legislation on and being able to tell very quickly what other states do. Senator Brown. Yes, Mr. President. Could you sort of go slow out there? You're blowing up the phone on us, please. Could you sort of go slow? Thank you. Sure. And so it'd be very helpful to be able to go to one place, see what other states are doing, see what the case lie is both here and elsewhere. So I think that there are gonna be other benefits to the taxpayers if you look at the issue more broadly. Thank you. Further discussion? Yes, Representative Rosenbaum, please. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do support this motion. I did have a question for Dexter. I wanted to know if assuming passage of this motion that this date or legislative council would be pursuing any other kind of licensing agreement, whether it's a Creative Commons license, a traditional license or any of these other methods that have been described by the witnesses today. Mr. Chair, Representative Rosenbaum, no, the effect of this motion would be to not, thereafter, we would not be pursuing any further licensing range with any commercial user, commercial website operator as well. Do I follow up, Mr. Chair? Sure. I guess my concern continues to be whether then in the public domain are going to be versions of these statutes that are less than helpful to the public because they are presented in a way that really is not. I mean, I guess I'm getting closer to this. There is some creativity in commentary on them, but nonetheless, the statutes are the statutes. They exist in a form that we put them out, and that is their official version. So is there gonna be any means in your view for the public to know that what they're looking at is the official most useful version if they try to rely on it? Representative, the office will explore with information systems and the technology folks here at the legislature about this MD5 technology and other digital signature requirements and see what feasibility there is in rolling that technology out. In addition, certainly the office will, to the extent necessary, ensure that they are not insured but have discussions with the Oregon Judicial Department and the court rules and ensuring that there still is a distinction between the official version of the RRS, which the Council Committee will produce and that that continues to be the official version for formal action. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Senator Brown, are you familiar with the motion that is now before us? I don't know if you were on when the motion was made. Yes, I am. Do you have any questions about the motion that's before us, Senator Brown? I do not. Thank you. Yes, Representative Hunt, please. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think the one other piece following up on Representative Rosa Bombs' question that came up in Mr. Forsythe's testimony is, and Dexter promised he'd look at whether, in fact, it is illegal right now to publish inaccurate versions. It doesn't seem like it's been an issue much thus far, but that may be one legal route we may be wise in taking and ensuring accuracy. I mean, frankly, I think this whole issue is a tough call for me. I think this is the way to go. I am, frankly, largely persuaded by the point that Mr. Massey made related to, if we don't take this action, we're gonna be exposing ourselves and taxpayers to risk on the lawsuit side of the equation, which is about the last place I wanna be spending money is defending us in a lawsuit. But I do continue to think that we need to look very carefully at ways that we are protecting the taxpayers. My frame of reference on this, working in marine transportation, my day job, if you are dredging sand on the Columbia River, that's considered public land. And if you use it, if you're a city or a county or a nonprofit, you use that sand, there's no cost for it. But if you're using it for profit, if you're selling it for profit, you pay a feedback to the state. And it seems like there's gotta be some way, I mean, it's a more difficult issue, perhaps in the technological world than it is in when you're dealing with a physical asset, like sand out of the bottom of the river. But I still think we need to continue to monitor this, so we're not expending significant amounts of money to create, you know, formatting for something that then someone is going. And as Representative Richardson said, gaining commerce from that. But for now, I think this is the only way we go. Thank you for the discussion. Representative Richardson, please. I'd just like to say that the motion deals with the copyright aspect of the law and it certainly doesn't preclude doing other things to protect the authenticity and veracity of our statutes. And I certainly support any movement that makes the laws of Oregon more transparent and more available to the general public. And I'm excited about the ability we already have to research digitally. And in my practice, we haven't spent $2,300 a month. Actually, we've never spent that much, but we haven't spent a lot of money since we've had access to open source information about statutes and other aspects of law. And I think that this only will expand that access and I think that's a good thing. Thank you. Would the committee clerk please call the roll on the motion is before us. And the motion is that the legislative council committee disclaim all copyright in the Oregon revised statutes and direct the legislative council to take no action to enhance any claim of copyright in the Oregon revised statutes. Aye. Representative Richardson. Aye. Senator Brown. Aye. Senator Burdick. Aye. Senator Nelson. Aye. Representative Pudge. Aye. And co-chair Clark. Yes. The motion is received a majority vote of the house members on the legislative council committee and a majority members of the senate members legislative council committee. Therefore, the motion is carried. Anything further to be discussed?