WV Assessor Sues to Keep Tax Maps Off the Internet 222
An anonymous reader writes "After trying to charge $167,488 for their collection of county tax maps (in TIF format), West Virginia was forced by a judge to hand them over for a $20 'reproduction costs' fee. Now a county tax assessor has filed a lawsuit trying to block the tax maps from being put online, claiming copyright infringement and financial damages since fewer people are coming to her to buy paper copies at $8 per page."
OK, it's three things that are certain in life... (Score:2, Insightful)
Public Record? (Score:5, Insightful)
There shouldn't be any profit involved (Score:5, Insightful)
Like the article says, taxation should be a transparent process. This isn't in any way similar to the argument over physical music costs vs. digital downloads; this is something where profits shouldn't be involved at all. And if they truly weren't, she would have no problem publishing them on the internet for free (or only a nominal cost to cover bandwidth and hosting, which really should be included in taxes since it's a public service available for all; 0.0025$ per resident per year should be more than enough to cover it).
Re:Freedom of Information (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see why this case should be treated differently. Why are they charging insurance companies? If the records are public, they are public, no matter who's getting them.
Small fish in even smaller ponds - local gov ftl (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:There shouldn't be any profit involved (Score:4, Insightful)
When digital came about, they probably started loosing money (revenue income) and carried the copy fee over to all copies. A lot of county engineering departments across the country use a portion of the copying costs to supplement their budgets. This is probable why she is fighting the putting them on line. IT would mean even less people pay for the services.
However right or wrong that might be when it is public information or record is up to whoever is judging it. I know a lot of government offices started charging fees to get around lack of tax revenues and budget problems. In my home town, it went from $125 for an engineering and zoning approval to open a business to almost $500. SO it is obvious that governments are attempting to cover more then actual costs if you ask me. It seems to piss off less people then raising taxes so they will get away with it unless someone sues like with WV.
Make these bitches give us INFORMATION, FREELY (Score:2, Insightful)
The public is what gives them power, and if they seek not to comply reasonably, they ought to be stripped of that power one magnitude greater than their infraction, to remind them who is putting them in charge.
This is not a business or a company. These people are there at our whim. When they fail to provide us with what they want, they ought to be ran out of office, and sent back to public life with the fury of thousands of people accompanying them.
Re:Freedom of Information (Score:4, Insightful)
This means the USA has a lot to learn from the UK. It is an ongoing profitable business over here. DVLA records, electoral register, land registry data, ordnance survey data, you name it. Everything is for sale and everything is for a profit. Privacy? Yeah, we heard about it. A person with a criminal record till last year could obtain anyone's details (provided that they own a vehicle) for mere 5 quid. Checks? What checks. Provided that the buyer pays the price checks should not get into the way of government officials conducting business ya know.
Hey guy -- they did! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not free? I'll tell you why: if I were pissed off at a department in my town, I could just stroll in and request everything. Flood them with requests for information. It takes time to gather all of that information and fill the requests, and that takes away from the other duties those employees must attend. Placing a nominal fee serves to significantly reduce the action of those who seek simply to waste time, but doesn't serve as a substantial burden to those who want the information for productive purposes.
Finally, given that this is being settled in the judicial system, your call for angry mobs is more than a bit premature.
Protection of investment (Score:5, Insightful)
Normally, the copying should not be a profit operation. However, this copying is a big part of what such an office does. That requires some equipment investment. And these are not small 8.5x11 sheets that typical copying equipment can serve. I've been to one of these offices in a West Virginia county, before, and these are on the order of 3x2 feet in size for the original paper copy. To some extent, the concern may be to protect that investment in reproduction equipment that could go underutilized if the maps go online.
But the world is changing. I should be able to click on "tax map" on my GPS equipped phone and have it automatically pull up the map of where I am standing, and overlay that with a satellite/aerial photo view, with names and addresses from the phone book, etc. I should not have to make a trip down to the county tax assessor just so they can pay off an antiquated copy machine due to their inability to assess the pace of technology development.
These maps are not accurate in terms of exact positioning. The assessment information is official, but the land shape and position is merely for identification purposes, only. Ironically, however, this very technology could also help make such maps much more accurate. Integrated with standardized survey data and low level aerial photos, and the assessments can be much more accurate in terms of things like valuation.
Re:Make these bitches give us INFORMATION, FREELY (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll let you figure out how to do this, in the role of a county tax assessor.
Before automatic reproduction equipment came along, you could not even have a copy of the map unless you paid a map maker to hand create a copy. That would be half a day effort for just one sectional map. The cost: half a day's wages. Want the entire county? Several weeks wages.
Along comes photo copy machinery. But this isn't cheap because the maps are huge. Even in 2008 this means investing a huge sum of money for the specialized (and hence, no economy of scale which means very expensive) equipment needed to make the copies.
Now you are a tax assessor. You don't have the budget to just buy the equipment. So your office has to take out a loan to buy it, to be paid back through the sale of copies. This is in no way a profit operation, as all the money collected for copies goes to pay off the loan. Now consider that along comes the internet and suddenly no one wants your paper copies anymore. But you're stuck with a big piece of equipment no one else has any use for, and a loan that still needs to be paid off.
I'm sure part of that money, especially after the loan is paid off, ends up supplementing the office operation itself. But that's actually typical for a great many government operations, where the routine servicing needs of a very small segment of the population has to be paid for by those that use it. A tax assessor general operation probably should not qualify for this since the general operation affects all property owners and potential buyers and a few lawyers with property cases ongoing. But it is not that far out of line, as $8 for a copy of a large sheet at 3 feet by 2 feet and larger is close to the real cost considering things like the special equipment and handling needed.
Re:Defending the State (Score:5, Insightful)
Or .... (Score:3, Insightful)
Or she still has that monster size paper copy machine that still needs to be paid off (they are not cheap in the versions needed to handle the large maps involved).
I agree, in this day and age, we should have such maps for no more than the cost of digital reproduction when we get them in digital form. And we should be able to. But just keep in mind why these tax assessors, and other government office officials in other circumstances like this, might be trying to collect the same money for digital data as for paper data ... they are stuck with continuing to pay off the loan for that equipment.
I hope the court rules against her since we need to move forward instead of being stuck in the past. But these government offices do have (incorrectly anticipated) future costs to resolve (how to pay off a giant photo copy machine when no one wants or can even use paper anymore).
Re:Defending the State (Score:5, Insightful)
The key is with tax dollars - which means taxpayers already paid for the information and now are getting charged a second time for something they could 9and by WVA law should) make available electronically for free or nearly free.
Look at the company that is actually suing to get government records for free!
RTFA - it sued to only pay a reasonable copying cost, not what the state demanded. Winning that is a win for all taxpayers seeking public records. WVA wants to prevent them from making the data available in order to protect their revenue stream.
They are creating a system using publicly funded tax records, that is for profit, and even worse, ultimately going to be used to enable corporate spying on the American people. While you think the government should just hand over all of its digital data for $20, I think it is absurd that a well financed and well capitalized corporation cannot pay a few hundred thousand dollars for data that it is going to make millions on.
Because anyone else can get the same data for the same price; making money by adding value is no sin; it's a good thing.
We - the citizens - paid for that information through taxes, individual and corporate, and ought to have access to it to use as we see fit. If tax assessments were private records it would be a different story, but they aren't.
Re:Freedom of Information (Score:5, Insightful)
Raise their costs and they will pass it to the customer, plus tax and profits. Lower their costs and more companies will enter the market, with better services and lower prices.
As a West Virginia Property Owner... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Local Gov Perspective (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm asking because I'm ignorant of the workings of such agencies, but why would the gov't ever need to pay to have their maps updated? Do you have rogue developers laying out new subdivisions without telling you? It seems like part of the permit to build a road could include the cost of maintaining the official maps.
Re:Public Record? (Score:3, Insightful)
I used to be an auto insurance adjuster with a three-state territory (MD, DC, and VA) (yeah, I'm counting DC - that's where the majority of my cases were). As such, I had to obtain police reports, often. Police reports, at least with regards to auto accidents, are public record. If you just happen to drive past an accident, and note when and where it was, you can request a police report if you like.
NONE of the municipalities I dealt with had any online availability. I had to physically mail them a request, and almost ALL police jurisdictions charged for copies of the accident reports. In DC, it was $3. In Prince George County, MD, it was $5. I know there was one municipality in VA that charged $15 for the report (I THINK it was Orange, VA, but I could be wrong).