Wikipedia:Democratic Bodies and Copyright

Modern democracies like the United States (where Wikpedia is hosted) regard Copyright as a limited monopoly granted to promote distribution of information. Transcripts, stills, and video of public democratic bodies are inherently public records. While there may be dispute about the copyright status of such information, the right of citizens to publicize the actions of their own representatives should not be infringed by copyright claims except on order of WMF Legal.