not copyrighted and are available for public use. Copyright for materials submitted to state agencies may be held by the person or organization that created the document. Patrons are responsible for clearing copyright on such materials. Minnesota There are conflicting official legal opinions on the correct interpretation of state law, and courts have yet to rule on how to interpret the law. A state commissioner's statement from December 1994 reads, in part, "unless specified by the legislature, the public's right of access to and use of public government data cannot be curtailed by a government entity's claim of intellectual property rights in those data". The reading of that as meaning "public domain", however, is contradicted by this statement from December 1995 which comes from the Attorney General, claims to be of higher authority, and explicitly references the prior statement and clarifies that it should be read as applying to access to the data, and not the copyright of the data, and offers alternative phrasing for the above-quoted portion: "The department may not assert copyright ownership to deny members of the public their right "to inspect and copy public government data at reasonable times and places" under Minn. Stat. § 13.03, subd. 3 (1994)." A key question is how to interpret this statute, which reads: New Jersey It is the policy of the state of New Jersey that all documents originating from web sites of executive departments and non-independent agencies are "available to the public and anyone may view, copy or distribute State information found here without obligation to the State" unless the document specifically states otherwise. Likewise, all records obtain from the state, county, or local government entities in New Jersey via the state's Open Public Records Act (OPRA), per a 2009 decision of the New Jersey Supreme Court, may be reproduced including for commercial purposes. According to the New Jersey Open Data Initiative Act (), all information listed on state agencies open data web portals, "shall be treated as license-free, subject to reuse, and not subject to copyright restrictions". This effectively makes data published under this act in the public domain. New York Courts have ruled that in general, works of this state are subject to copyright restrictions. North Carolina North Carolina statute holds that "The public records and public information compiled by the agencies of North Carolina government or its subdivisions are the property of the people. Therefore,