4 ms·
If you publish Georgia’s state laws, you’ll get sued for copyright and lose
- kriro 10y agoPretty ridiculous. I mean I get that annotations add value but if they are required an annotated version should be available to all citizens. Malamud's fighting a good fight here, hats off. cough, cough I wonder if the free version of the law follows all accessibility regulations. cough, cough
- dovdovdov 10y agoThe land of the free*.
- MertsA 10y ago*Terms and conditions may apply.
- tomohawk 10y agoI do wonder what's cheaper - to allow the publisher to recoup costs in this way or for the state to pay for the service up front? It's troubling though, that such a concern would somehow be more important than ensuring all citizens have open and unfettered access to the law. It's especially galling that local governments routinely incorporate copyrighted "model codes" into law. These model codes are created by unelected, unaccountable groups that have their own agendas. You also end up paying to get a copy of important things such as plumbing/electric codes.
- matt4077 10y agoIt's the direct result of anti-government propaganda. If you starve the state of financial resources, they will, sooner rather than later, have to cut corners knowing that it will cost more in the long run, just to make the numbers work in the short term. Sometimes those costs are incurred by future governments (lease-back deals), sometimes by the citizen (here). It's the collective version of living paycheck-to-paycheck.
- tomohawk 10y agoSo, the legislature, which is responsible for appropriations, is starving itself?
- moomin 10y agoThe legislature is controlled by political parties. All he's saying is that politicians put their own electoral interests ahead of those of the country. I don't think that's even controversial.
- liareye 10y agoLOW ENERGY
- klez 10y agoPrevious discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13995072 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13995072 just 20 hours ago.
- huffmsa 10y agoIt's technically fine as it is right now. What needs to happen is some bold individual needs to intentionally lose a criminal case because they didn't have access to the annotated texts. Then it becomes a due process issue and can probably get pushed to the US Supreme Court.
- paulajohnson 10y agoI don't think you would need an actual criminal case. "Chilling effects" (i.e. people can't find out the law, and hence might refrain from lawful behavior) would seem to be sufficient.
- huffmsa 10y agoMight work, although it might not carry the same weight as full blown criminal proceedings. Now if you could show that the chilling effect was detrimental to something like business in the state, that might be better.
- paulajohnson 10y agoI would have thought that this could be challenged under the 14th Amendment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Due_Process_Clause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Due_Process_Clause). "Due process" must surely include being able to find out what laws might apply to you, and a paywall would seem to breach that.
- narrowrail 10y agoI can't believe this is still coming up in this thread, but reading the other comments one learns that the laws are available to read you just can't publish them because a private company has that contract. Here's the link, read away: http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/gacode/Default.asp http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/gacode/Default.asp Edit: Also, I didn't realize this was a dupe until I responded. This discussion already took place.
- noahm 10y agoIf I need a apply for a license to read the law, can I also claim that I need to be licensed in order to be actually bound by the law? Obviously I cannot, but the absurdity of the idea that I can be legally bound by something that is not freely available to me is striking.