Overall Conclusions
I believe this case raises an issue regarding intellectual property, specifically federal copyright law. The legal problems surrounding this case are basically about one research report that was written by one person that may have belonged to the client that commissioned it. Pat Parker acted cautiously as though Parker & Associates owned the copyrights to the report they had created. "Under federal copyright law, a specific category called "work for hire," which states that once a product is completed and turned over to the employer, it rightfully became the property of the employer". [1]
However, Parker was an independent contractor, not an employee. Plus, no such language of "work for hire" ever existed in the research or the contractual agreement between Parker and the client. Therefore, Parker & Associates had every legal right to sell the report to anyone else that wished to do so without violating federal copyright law.
Pat Parker would have gone against the personal beliefs that carried Parker & Associates for years if the research report had been sold to the State Academy of Trial Lawyers. There would have been a sense of betrayal or untruthfulness to the Democratic Party, which Parker & Associates had supported for many years. Pat Parker could legally sell the report to the State Academy of Trial Lawyers, but would feel ethically and morally wrong for having done so. It could have opened up the potential for future clients, but at what cost to Parker's personal preferences or to Parker & Associates in the long run by playing both sides against the middle.
I believe that Pat Parker would be better off taking the path that leads to both the legal and ethical right answer. Parker & Associates had the legal right to either sell or not sell the research report to whomever they chose. By not selling a report produced for one party to another party would put Parker & Associates in a Win-Win situation.
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