-- DISSEMINATED BY THE HYPERLAW REPORT --
1992 CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY OF WEST PUBLISHING COMPANY AND THOMSON
PROFESSIONAL PUBLISHING.
THOMSON: WEST EARNS --- "MONOPOLY CHARGES FOR ACCESS TO LEGAL TEXTS"
WEST: LORD THOMSON MOTIVE --- "DISMANTLE FUNDAMENTAL AMERICAN LAWS FOR THEIR
OWN PROFIT AND AT THE EXPENSE OF AMERICAN JOBS AND PROSPERITY"
EXCERPTS FROM HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND
JUDICIAL ADMINISTRATION OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES, 102ND CONGRESS, 2ND SESSION, ON H.R. 4426, EXCLUSION OF
COPYRIGHT PROTECTION FOR CERTAIN LEGAL COMPILATIONS, MAY 14, 1992, SERIAL NO.
105.
********************
THOMSON STATEMENTS ABOUT WEST MONOPOLY:
"Simply put, the West Publishing decision has enabled a single private
publisher to monopolize the publication of lower federal court decisions,
statutory law in Illinois and Texas and elsewhere and the appellate case law of
many state. That has forced libraries and others to pay tens of millions in
monopoly charges for access to legal texts, and has deprived users of the
improved choices, quality, and timeliness the competition could have provided."
Prepared Statement of Kathryn M. Downing, President and Chief Operating
Officer, Thomson Electronic Publishing Co., on Behalf of Thomson Professional
Publishing. P. 86.
[HyperLaw Note:
Downing later became President of Thomson's Lawyers Cooperative. In August,
1995, Downing left the Thomson organization and became President of Matthew
Bender & Co. (a Times Mirror Company.)
Earlier, in February, 1994 Matthew Bender had initiated a litigation against
West seeking to declare copyrights in pagination as being invalid (HyperLaw is
a Plaintiff-Intervenor in that case which is pending in the United States
District Court for the Sourthern District of New York.)
In 1988, Downing was with Mead (Lexis) and was an active participant in Mead's
litigation with West.]
*********************
STATEMENTS OF WEST PUBLISHING COMPANY BY VANCE K. OPPERMAN, NOW PRESIDENT OF
WEST:
"If you wish to look up the case law of the State of Delaware, if you wanted to
be an entrepreneur and do your own compilation, fine, it is open for anyone to
do so. You can also get it on Westlaw. You can get it, of course, in the
Atlantic Reporter. You can get them on Lexis, and you used to be able to get
them on Veralex. Veralex was available through LCP before Lloyd Thomson and
Thomson International bought Lawyers Cooperative Publishing for $810 million,
along with 25 American publishers they have bought in the last 8 years. They
then phase out Veralex."
Page 115, Oral Testimony of Vance K. Opperman, Esq., Heins & Paquin, on Behalf
of West Publishing Co.
***
"The point in this legislation it being pushed by one commercial enterprise,
Thomson, previously called International Thomson. They do not want to go into
Texas and do what the Texas Legislature is starting to do or what we have done
since 1926, although they're free to do it. They want to copy our
arrangement."
Page 116, Oral Testimony of Vance K. Opperman, Esq., Heins & Paquin, on Behalf
of West Publishing Co."
***
"West Publishing Company is an employee-owned company that has specialized in
legal publishing for 116 years."
Page 120, Prepared Statement of Vance K. Opperman, Esq., Heins & Paquin, on
Behalf of West Publishing Co.
***
"Thomson Corporation is a multinational, multi-billion dollar conglomerate
owned by Lord Kenneth Thomson. It has purchased many companies in the American
legal market over the last few years. In addition to Bancroft-Whitney, Thomson
also owns Lawyers" Cooperative Publishing Company, Clark Boardman Company and
Callaghan & Company (now Clark Boardman Callaghan), Research Institute of
America, and Warren, Gorham and Lamont."
Page 133, Prepared Statement of Vance K. Opperman, Esq., Heins & Paquin, on
Behalf of West Publishing Co.
***
"Perhaps more disturbing is the motive of the primary proponent of H.R. 4426,
Lord Thomson and his foreign-based conglomerate. We have all witnesses past
efforts by foreign firms, acting under the guise of the U.S. subsidiaries they
have bought up, to alter or dismantle fundamental American laws for their own
profit and at the expense of American jobs and prosperity. If Congress should
enact H.R. 4426, a foreign conglomerate will have succeeded in gaining a
specific exception to the long-held principle of compilation copyright for no
purpose other than to enhance it own profits at the expense of American
competitors and jobs. Similar efforts by those foreign interests against other
types of compilations or other types of copyrighted property would likely
follow."
Page 159, Prepared Statement of Vance K. Opperman, Esq., Heins & Paquin, on
Behalf of West Publishing Co.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Alan D. Sugarman Federal Appeals on Disc tm CD-ROM ::
President Opinions of US Courts of Appeals ::
1993 to Date - All Circuits ::
HyperLaw, Inc. ® ::
P.O. Box 1176 DO NOT SHORT CIRCUIT YOUR CLIENTS ::
New York, NY 10023 ::
sugarman@hyperlaw.com 212-787-2812 212-496-4138(fax) ::
::
American Owned ::
::
/// /// /// ::
/// /// /// ::
/// /// /// ::
//////////////// /// ::
//////////////// /// ::
/// /// /// ::
/// /// /////////// ::
/// /// /////////// ® ::
::
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 14 2007 - 20:49:10 PST