5 ms·
Because you have to pay to even read the state laws of Georgia, so nobody knows the law?
by amigoingtodie 9y ago
Because you have to pay to even read the state laws of Georgia, so nobody knows the law?
- edoceo 9y agoWut?
- alsetmusic 9y agoThey were referencing this: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/public-records-activist-violated-copyright-by-publishing-georgia-legal-code-online/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/public-records-a...
- lovich 9y agoThe text of Georgias law is publicly available, but there is a version with annotations from legal precendents that is considered necessary to understand the law as it is currently interpreted. LexisNexis collates those annotations for the state of Georgia and maintains a copyright on the annotations, you cannot access them without paying. The government in Georgia feel this is perfectly acceptable as you can tehcnically access the law even though, in practice, you have no idea
- rayiner 9y agoThe annotated version is freely available: http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/gacode/default.asp http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/gacode/default.asp. What the kerfuffle is about is that the State of Georgia has (1) Georgia law is highly unusual in giving the annotations authoritative force; (2) the State of Georgia has asserted copyright over the annotated version.
- lovich 9y agoah my mistake
- jonathanwallace 9y agoIt depends upon what you mean by "free." There are limitations on what you may do with the "freely" available version.
- amigoingtodie 9y agohttps://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/public-records-activist-violated-copyright-by-publishing-georgia-legal-code-online/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/03/public-records-a...
- AnimalMuppet 9y agoTrue. But how is that relevant? Nobody can read the law (the annotated copy), so nobody knows that wiping the servers is destroying evidence, and therefore illegal? I doubt that that's how this went down...
- googlryas 9y agoFalse. You don't need to pay to read the laws, but you do need to pay if you want to read a private groups annotations to the laws, which include things like judicial rulings. The annotations are a value add and not required to understand or practice law in GA. You can also access the judicial rulings and all other sources which the annotations are derived from for free, but you would need to put the work in yourself to compile that data.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Retric 9y agoIt's not quite that clear cut. Georgia places unusual weight to these specific annotations so simply having access to the rulings will not result in the same exact output.
- rayiner 9y agoYes it’s very unusual. The official version is the annotated one, and the annotations have legal force.
- sliverstorm 9y agoSupposedly the annotated version is actually the official Georgia code.
- lobster_johnson 9y agoGeorgia is somewhat unique in that the annotations actually are part of the codified law. You absolutely do need the annotations to practice, because they are authoritative. So not "false" after all.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]