Virginia Code 30-147: Contracting with publishers; property rights regarding Code of Virginia and Virginia Administrative Code material
A. The Commission may enter into contracts with any reputable person for such editorial work, printing, indexing, annotating and other work as may be necessary. All parts of any code published or authorized to be published by the Commission, including statute text, regulation text, catchlines, historical citations, numbers of sections, articles, chapters and titles, frontal analyses and revisor’s notes, shall become and remain the exclusive property of the Commonwealth to be used only as the Commission may direct. However, the Commission shall acknowledge a property right in and the right to copyright materials prepared and added to any code by the person preparing it. Such materials may include, inter alia, case annotations, indices, various notes concerning sections and reference tables.
Terms Used In Virginia Code 30-147
- Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
- Freedom of Information Act: A federal law that mandates that all the records created and kept by federal agencies in the executive branch of government must be open for public inspection and copying. The only exceptions are those records that fall into one of nine exempted categories listed in the statute. Source: OCC
- Person: includes any individual, corporation, partnership, association, cooperative, limited liability company, trust, joint venture, government, political subdivision, or any other legal or commercial entity and any successor, representative, agent, agency, or instrumentality thereof. See Virginia Code 1-230
- State: when applied to a part of the United States, includes any of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the United States Virgin Islands. See Virginia Code 1-245
- Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
B. Trade secrets or proprietary information submitted by any person contracting or proposing to contract with the Commission in connection with the publication of (i) the Code of Virginia, (ii) the Virginia Administrative Code or (iii) any other materials published by the Commission shall not be subject to public disclosure under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (§ 2.2-3700 et seq.). However, the person or firm shall invoke the protections of this subsection prior to or upon submission of the data or other materials to be protected and state the reasons why protection is necessary. The Commission may, in closed session, discuss, consider, review or deliberate upon proposals which contain trade secrets or proprietary information submitted by any person contracting or proposing to contract with the Commission in connection with the publication of the Code of Virginia or the Virginia Administrative Code.
1983, c. 260, § 9-77.8; 1992, c. 216; 1993, c. 505; 1994, c. 820; 2001, c. 844.