W. R. Lewis
Office of the Attorney GeneralDecember 7, 1995
1995 WL 779743 (Miss.A.G.)
Office of the Attorney General
State of Mississippi
*1 Opinion No. 95-0782
*1 December 7, 1995
Re: Public Records
*1 W. R. Lewis
*1 Supervisor, State Oil and Gas Board
*1 500 Greymont Avenue, Suite E
*1 Jackson, Mississippi 39202
Dear Mr. Lewis:
*1 Attorney General Mike Moore has received your letter of request for an official opinion and has assigned it to me for research and reply. Your letter states in part:
*1 The [Oil and Gas] Board has been given the opportunity to receive a computer database of information concerning all of the oil wells in the State of Mississippi which has been compiled by Petroleum Information, a private corporation. ... Petroleum Information, however, will only provide the database on the condition that the organizational program or operating program which stores and retrieves the information not be made available to the public through the Mississippi Records Act. This is true because Petroleum Information markets the computerized directory for sale and obviously, the public's ability to obtain the entire package through a Public Records Act request would destroy their market.
***
*1 This situation gives rise, then, to the following two questions as to which I would appreciate your official opinion:
*1 (1) Does the organizational or operating program which runs a database - as distinguished from data itself - qualify as “commercial and financial information of a proprietary nature ...” as contemplated by Miss. Code Ann. Section 79-23-1 (Supp. 1995), and therefore, excepted from the Mississippi Public Records Act of 1983?
*1 (2) Assuming the answer to question (1) above is yes, to what extent in the [Oil and Gas] Board required to accommodate requests for the downloading of data from the program onto electronic disks or other media in light of the fact that the Board will provide facilities for actually printing out hard copies of any of the data from the database?
*1 In response to your first question, we attach and incorporate the prior opinion of this office to Frank C. Stebbins, dated April 3, 1992, which states that computer software programs are not typically data or information but rather are tools developed to collect, manipulate and assimilate information, and therefore, are not subject to public disclosure under the Mississippi Public Records Act of 1983.
*1 In response to your second question, I refer you to Section 25-61-5 of the Mississippi Code of 1972, which states:
*1 (1) Except as otherwise provided by sections 25-61-9 and 25-61-11, all public records are hereby declared to be public property, and any person shall have the right to inspect, copy or mechanically reproduce or obtain a reproduction of any public record of a public body in accordance with reasonable written procedures adopted by the public body concerning the cost, time, place and method of access, and public notice of the procedures shall be given by the public body, or, in the event that a public body has not adopted such written procedures, the right to inspect, copy or mechanically reproduce or obtain a reproduction of a public record of the public body shall be provided within one (1) working day after a written request for a public record is made. No public body shall adopt procedures which will authorize the public body to produce or deny production of a public record later than fourteen (14) working days from the date of request for the production of such record.
*2 Thus, the State Oil and Gas Board may set up written procedures for the access and reproduction of the information stored in the database. Also, we attach and incorporate the prior opinion of this office to Stephan Rimmer, dated February 10, 1994, which states that a public body must, when reasonably possible, provide the public record or information in the format requested provided such format is reasonably available. However, it is not required to do so if such would require a significant intrusion into the business of the public body, violate a licensing agreement or copyright, or divulge protected softwear.
*2 If this office can be of any further assistance, please let us know.
Notes
TO RETRIEVE THE FULL TEXT OF THE ATTACHED OPINION(S) SET FORTH AT THIS POINT, ENTER THE FOLLOWING FIND:
FI 1992 WL 613839
FI 1994 WL 68337
1995 WL 779743 (Miss.A.G.)
| End of Document |