http://www.cfac.org/Law/key_laws.html The California Public Records Act link is noted above. Here are a few interesting items from that link. Q: What is meant by "direct costs of duplication"? A: This phrase means "the cost of running the copying machine, and conceivably also the expense of the person operating it. 'Direct cost' does not include the ancillary tasks necessarily associated with the retrieval, inspection and handling of the file from which the copy is extracted." So ruled the Fourth District, California Court of Appeal in 1994, disapproving a 25 cent per page fee which reflected not only copying but "staff time involved in searching the records, reviewing records for information exempt from disclosure under law, and deleting such exempt information" (North County Parents Organization for Children with Special Needs v. Department of Education, 23 Cal. App. 4th 144). A fact supporting this view is that the charging of fees under the Act attaches to copying -- there is no fee-charging authority provided in the sections dealing with the mere inspection of a record. And yet in order to produce a record for inspection, the agency must already expend all the effort -- search, retrieval, review, redaction, replacement -- except for copying itself. If these costs were meant to be captured in a fee, there would need to be authority to charge a fee for inspection even when no copy was requested. Q: The law says that the copy requester may be charged either a statutory fee or the direct costs of duplication. What is meant by "statutory fee"? A: This phrase refers either to a specific monetary amount set by the Legislature or to a fee established by the agency under an act of the Legislature - a state statute - which expressly delegates to the agency the fee-setting function, for example the authority given the director of the DMV under Vehicle Code Section 1811 to set fees for various types of records. (Shippen v. Department of Motor Vehicles, 161 Cal. App. 3d 1119 (California Court of Appeal, 3d Dist. 1984)). While some local agencies contend that "statutory fee" permits any charge so long as it is formally established in an ordinance, the Act does not use "statute" and "ordinance" interchangeably. In the three other provisions in which "statute" is used, two of them clearly refer to state or federal legislation (Section 6254.5 (c) and Section 6254.6), and in the third instance "statute" and "ordinance" clearly do not refer to the same thing: ( This means that if Mariposa County has passed an ordinance to set fees for copies of such things as birth records, they can charge what they want. It would also include "photocopies" of anything else, IF and only iF set by an ordinance. ) More Q and A's are listed at http://cfac.org/Law/CPRA/Q&A/cpra_faqs_2.html#anchor711085 There is alot of info regarding this on the web. You just need to know that you are looking for info regarding The California Public Records Act . mel