All,
Some years ago I did some writing for the municipal government I worked for. (past tense) It was and is a project that I continue to have interest in and would like to publish.
Just so no one is unclear; the material was created while I was working for that municipal government and the copyright is therefore held by them. Just today I started to try to obtain a copy. Here in Indiana you can file for a copy of public information and I don’t see why I would get denied.
Now comes the tricky part, Is it possible to publish the material under my own name? If it would be possible for the City to assign the copyright to me, then yes. If for what ever reason the City is unable or unwilling to do that, then I think no.
Given the nature of the material, I think that it’s unlikely that I could re-write the material in a significantly different way.
The rest of this is extraneous to the copyright question and is back ground for why I would like to publish:
For any one who is interested, I worked in the Building Department as The Plumbing Inspector. Indiana requires that people who engage in the plumbing trade for monetary compensation be licensed. The Cities Plumbing Ordnance requires that if you are doing Plumbing you need a permit. Doing Plumbing being defined as adding to or removing from the plumbing pipes that are currently installed. In the ordinance there is a provision for home owners who live in their home to obtain a plumbing permit. The requirement was they would be able to pass a test. Well there wasn’t one nor was there any useful guides. Sure we followed the Indiana Plumbing Code but even experienced plumbers sometimes don’t know it, let alone understand it. (Usually the last time they read the Plumbing Code was during their apprenticeship!)
There is no reasonable expectation that a Home owner would understand code unless they have had an opportunity to study it, and it usually takes someone who does understand code to explain the way code is formatted and then to explain what specific section means.
So what I did was to get permission from the Building Commissioner (My nominal boss) to create a sort of plumbing reference, I tried to render code speak into more understandable terms. This is what I would like to publish, most plumbing books that are aimed at homeowners don’t touch on code compliance issues in any great depth and I think there would be a market for a book that bridged the gape between plumbing code and people who just want to add some fixture and have no real desire to become professionals.
Feeble jokes made about Building Inspector’s, Plumbing Inspectors are a subset. Ask an Inspector a code question and the answer usually starts; It just depends, (on what you want to do). Get 10 Building Inspectors in a room and ask them what the code says about some particular issue and you will get at least 11 (and usually more) answers.
Oh, one more thing: Here in Indiana we have an appeal process. A builder that gets cited for some code violation can appeal to the State Fire and Building Safety Commission for a ruling. I had two such appeals during my tenure, one was found in favor of the builder, in the other the builder was allowed to change his appeal while he was before the Commission. He was not able to do what I had cited him for, but was allowed to utilize a different method to gain code compliance.
Lastly, I am aware that many of you feel that you have been ill treated by a Building Inspector. I can’t do anything about that and would not want to. I didn’t see what the Inspector saw and don’t have any knowledge of what your Building Inspector was basing xis* judgement upon. I can not make any kind of reasonably informed opinion about your particular issues.
If you need to express your frustrations, please do so elsewhere.
Thank you to those who spent the time to read all of this and especially to any who choose to respond to the question about copyright.
*xis is a neutral personal pronoun.
