March 15, 2012

Ms. LeAnn M. Quinn

City Secretary

City of Cedar Park

600 North Bell Boulevard

Cedar Park, Texas 78613

OR2012-03845

Dear Ms. Quinn:

You ask whether certain information is subject to required public disclosure under the Public Information Act (the "Act"), chapter 552 of the Government Code. Your request was assigned ID# 452088 (Ref. No. 12-292).

The City of Cedar Park (the "city") received a request for the construction documents for a specified building. ⁽¹⁾ You state that the requested information is protected by copyright. You inform us that the city will allow the requestor to inspect the information in question. You contend that the Act does not require the city to provide copies of the information. We have considered your arguments and reviewed the information you submitted.

We agree that the submitted information is protected by copyright. A custodian of public records must comply with the copyright law and is not required to furnish copies of records that are copyrighted. Open Records Decision No. 180 at 3 (1977). A governmental body must allow inspection of copyrighted materials unless an exception applies to the information. Id.; see Open Records Decision No. 109 (1975). If a member of the public wishes to make copies of copyrighted materials, the person must do so unassisted by the governmental body. In making copies, the member of the public assumes the duty of compliance with the copyright law and the risk of a copyright infringement suit. Accordingly, we agree that the city complies with the Act by providing access to the requested information and may not make copies of the information for the requestor.

This letter ruling is limited to the particular information at issue in this request and limited to the facts as presented to us; therefore, this ruling must not be relied upon as a previous determination regarding any other information or any other circumstances.

This ruling triggers important deadlines regarding the rights and responsibilities of the governmental body and of the requestor. For more information concerning those rights and responsibilities, please visit our website at http://www.oag.state.tx.us/open/index_orl.php, or call the Office of the Attorney General's Open Government Hotline, toll free, at (877) 673-6839. Questions concerning the allowable charges for providing public information under the Act must be directed to the Cost Rules Administrator of the Office of the Attorney General, toll free at (888) 672-6787.

Sincerely,

Tamara H. Holland

Assistant Attorney General

Open Records Division

THH/ag

Ref: ID# 452088

Enc. Submitted documents

c: Requestor

(w/o enclosures)

Footnotes

1. You state the city asked for and received clarification of the request. See Gov't Code § 552.222(b)(providing that if request for information is unclear, governmental body may ask requestor to clarify the request); see also City of Dallas v. Abbott, 304 S.W.3d 380, 387 (Tex. 2010) (holding that when a governmental entity, acting in good faith, requests clarification or narrowing of an unclear or overbroad request for public information, the ten-day period to request an attorney general ruling is measured from the date the request is clarified or narrowed)

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