4 ms·

UpCodes cofounder here, glad to see people care about this! Happy to answer any questions.

paulgb 8y ago
The idea that someone could copyright the law is completely antethetical to democracy. Good luck, you're on the right side!
- YjSe2GMQ 8y ago
  Yeah it's absolute garbage. Reminds me of "Brazil" (1985), the Ministry of Information Retrieval (euphemism for torture) and their capital efficiency: > I understand this concern on behalf of the taxpayers. People want value for money. That's why we always insist on the principal of Information Retrieval charges. It's absolutely right and fair that those found guilty should pay for their periods of detention and the Information Retrieval procedures used in their interrogations. > Don't fight it son, confess quickly. If you hold out too long, you could jeopardize your credit rating.
- Old_Thrashbarg 8y ago
  Thank you, glad to get such a supportive response from folks. After keeping quiet about it for a year and a half, it's good to finally get this lawsuit some attention.
mauvehaus 8y ago
Where do we send money? If you don't need it to pay for lawyers, buy some beer for yourselves, because this fight should be settled in favor of free (gratis) access to the law for everybody once and for all.
- Old_Thrashbarg 8y ago
  Hey thanks for the support! The best thing you can do is just raise awareness. Either sharing this article or our advocacy page (https://up.codes/free-law https://up.codes/free-law) to raise awareness helps. It's hard to get most people to care, but this really does affect everyone. You can also follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/upcodes https://twitter.com/upcodes As you can see, we're not very good at social media and have small reach, so any help is appreciated!
  - mauvehaus 8y ago
    I am pretty much the last person on the planet who should be telling people how to use social media, but if you aren't on instagram, you should be. There's a pretty vibrant community of people in the building trades on there sharing photos of their work and exchanging information. I'm a recovering programmer turned woodworker with a pretty small following (200 and some followers, like I said, I'm the last person who should be telling people how to use social media), but I follow some carpenters and I'm consistently impressed with how much genuinely informative discussion takes place.
tracker1 8y ago
Would it be enough to change any verbiage and keep all the numbers/measurements and formulas the same?
- Old_Thrashbarg 8y ago
  IANAL, but I think in the Public.Resource.Org / EFF case, they were claiming you could restate the law: """ Judge Tatel: you have to stay in the hospital for the three days. Can they not use three days? Mr. Verrilli: No, I think they could describe the fact that the standard says three days. But again ... Judge Tatel: More than two and less than four? Is that what they'd have to say? """ (p. 24 of DC Circuit oral argument, https://www.dropbox.com/s/bb0by3nm3dfql3v/gov.uscourts.cadc.17-7035.oral.20180514.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/bb0by3nm3dfql3v/gov.uscourts.cadc....) But to answer more directly, we host the law. If we change the precise wording of the law, then that's unacceptable. If you being tried, you can't say "well, I followed this alternative law and if you read that, you'll see it can be interpreted differently". No, the exact text of the law is the law, nothing else.
  - tracker1 8y ago
    But the law says standards of X. If the law prevents people from understanding X, then I would think one could argue that the law itself doesn't go into enough detail. If X isn't bound as part of the law, and it can't be re-stated while keeping the intent in tact, then imho it should be effectively invalid. Just my own opinion, not something the court system would uphold necessarily. I do find this appalling in practice. I would have less issue so long as the copyright holders for any legal specifications were limited to non-profit organizations with open accounting provisions.
dahart 8y ago
Really interesting issue you guys bumped into. I totally would have assumed that US legal codes were clearly and explicitly exempt from copyrights. Can you talk about your plan to defend your position at all? I'm somewhat curious if the ICC has a demonstrated history of licensing their codes to US governments. When cities & states publish the codes in print and online, presumably the ICC would need to be licensing those codes in written agreements, if the ICC's position has merit. It seems like it might be a problem for their case if they can't show a history of having granted copyrights everywhere the codes have been published before. Even though I think laws shouldn't be copyrightable, I have a small amount of sympathy for the ICC saying they did work that is now being used without any compensation. Hopefully they will update their expectations and figure out how to charge for some additional value beyond the text of the legal codes. But I'm also curious if you guys have started exploring any peaceful solutions such as revenue sharing, or paying the ICC for versions of codes, or support, or annotations, etc.?
- Old_Thrashbarg 8y ago
  Yes, we assumed that too until we got sued! We thought we were all good after reading about Veeck case (in which ICC, whose codes we thought we could very safely put up, lost in the 5th circuit). I believe the ICC and state governments do reach agreements. For example, the Michigan state government's site instructs citizens to go buy the laws from ICC. Fun fact: the only play to read these Michigan laws for free online is UpCodes. We bought the physical books, sliced, scanned, OCRed, ingested and posted them. In terms of our plan, we're relying a lot on case law. We put 4 very clear examples on our advocacy page. (up.codes/free-law, see "Didn't ICC already litigate this case?" under the FAQ) > I have a small amount of sympathy for the ICC saying they did work that is now being used without any compensation. Just don't forget that the codes are written by volunteers who never see a penny AFAIK. ICC organizers the volunteers (which is an important time-consuming task I do recognize). Also, don't think they have no compensation. The majority of ICC’s revenue comes from program services, including consulting, certification, and training, which do not rely on profiting by limiting access to the law. Their CEO makes $742,000 in salary, which is arguably a bit high for a non-profit.
  - 8y ago
dmckeon 8y ago
Did UpCodes make any attempt to approach the copyright holder regarding licensing for republication or redistribution? edit: FTA: "UpCodes did not ask ICC to license the code"
- Old_Thrashbarg 8y ago
  Right, we did not. In addition, we've heard from a ton of people asking how we were able to do this. They each have a story about trying to do something in this space and trying to work with ICC (or one of the other ones) and getting nowhere. Half the stories are about people failing to convince them to let them touch their laws and half are about people who just assumed they're in the clear and then get a letter with 12 top corporate litigators saying they'd be suing them personally in federal court. I happen to be at a point in my life where I don't have much to lose and hence when I fell into the second bucket, was able to fight back. But yeah, they're trying to personally bankrupt us.

The idea that someone could copyright the law is completely antethetical to democracy. Good luck, you're on the right side!

YjSe2GMQ 8y ago
Yeah it's absolute garbage. Reminds me of "Brazil" (1985), the Ministry of Information Retrieval (euphemism for torture) and their capital efficiency: > I understand this concern on behalf of the taxpayers. People want value for money. That's why we always insist on the principal of Information Retrieval charges. It's absolutely right and fair that those found guilty should pay for their periods of detention and the Information Retrieval procedures used in their interrogations. > Don't fight it son, confess quickly. If you hold out too long, you could jeopardize your credit rating.
Old_Thrashbarg 8y ago
Thank you, glad to get such a supportive response from folks. After keeping quiet about it for a year and a half, it's good to finally get this lawsuit some attention.

mauvehaus 8y ago

Where do we send money? If you don't need it to pay for lawyers, buy some beer for yourselves, because this fight should be settled in favor of free (gratis) access to the law for everybody once and for all.

Old_Thrashbarg 8y ago
Hey thanks for the support! The best thing you can do is just raise awareness. Either sharing this article or our advocacy page (https://up.codes/free-law https://up.codes/free-law) to raise awareness helps. It's hard to get most people to care, but this really does affect everyone. You can also follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/upcodes https://twitter.com/upcodes As you can see, we're not very good at social media and have small reach, so any help is appreciated!
- mauvehaus 8y ago
  I am pretty much the last person on the planet who should be telling people how to use social media, but if you aren't on instagram, you should be. There's a pretty vibrant community of people in the building trades on there sharing photos of their work and exchanging information. I'm a recovering programmer turned woodworker with a pretty small following (200 and some followers, like I said, I'm the last person who should be telling people how to use social media), but I follow some carpenters and I'm consistently impressed with how much genuinely informative discussion takes place.

tracker1 8y ago

Would it be enough to change any verbiage and keep all the numbers/measurements and formulas the same?

Old_Thrashbarg 8y ago
IANAL, but I think in the Public.Resource.Org / EFF case, they were claiming you could restate the law: """ Judge Tatel: you have to stay in the hospital for the three days. Can they not use three days? Mr. Verrilli: No, I think they could describe the fact that the standard says three days. But again ... Judge Tatel: More than two and less than four? Is that what they'd have to say? """ (p. 24 of DC Circuit oral argument, https://www.dropbox.com/s/bb0by3nm3dfql3v/gov.uscourts.cadc.17-7035.oral.20180514.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/bb0by3nm3dfql3v/gov.uscourts.cadc....) But to answer more directly, we host the law. If we change the precise wording of the law, then that's unacceptable. If you being tried, you can't say "well, I followed this alternative law and if you read that, you'll see it can be interpreted differently". No, the exact text of the law is the law, nothing else.
- tracker1 8y ago
  But the law says standards of X. If the law prevents people from understanding X, then I would think one could argue that the law itself doesn't go into enough detail. If X isn't bound as part of the law, and it can't be re-stated while keeping the intent in tact, then imho it should be effectively invalid. Just my own opinion, not something the court system would uphold necessarily. I do find this appalling in practice. I would have less issue so long as the copyright holders for any legal specifications were limited to non-profit organizations with open accounting provisions.

dahart 8y ago

Really interesting issue you guys bumped into. I totally would have assumed that US legal codes were clearly and explicitly exempt from copyrights. Can you talk about your plan to defend your position at all? I'm somewhat curious if the ICC has a demonstrated history of licensing their codes to US governments. When cities & states publish the codes in print and online, presumably the ICC would need to be licensing those codes in written agreements, if the ICC's position has merit. It seems like it might be a problem for their case if they can't show a history of having granted copyrights everywhere the codes have been published before. Even though I think laws shouldn't be copyrightable, I have a small amount of sympathy for the ICC saying they did work that is now being used without any compensation. Hopefully they will update their expectations and figure out how to charge for some additional value beyond the text of the legal codes. But I'm also curious if you guys have started exploring any peaceful solutions such as revenue sharing, or paying the ICC for versions of codes, or support, or annotations, etc.?

Old_Thrashbarg 8y ago
Yes, we assumed that too until we got sued! We thought we were all good after reading about Veeck case (in which ICC, whose codes we thought we could very safely put up, lost in the 5th circuit). I believe the ICC and state governments do reach agreements. For example, the Michigan state government's site instructs citizens to go buy the laws from ICC. Fun fact: the only play to read these Michigan laws for free online is UpCodes. We bought the physical books, sliced, scanned, OCRed, ingested and posted them. In terms of our plan, we're relying a lot on case law. We put 4 very clear examples on our advocacy page. (up.codes/free-law, see "Didn't ICC already litigate this case?" under the FAQ) > I have a small amount of sympathy for the ICC saying they did work that is now being used without any compensation. Just don't forget that the codes are written by volunteers who never see a penny AFAIK. ICC organizers the volunteers (which is an important time-consuming task I do recognize). Also, don't think they have no compensation. The majority of ICC’s revenue comes from program services, including consulting, certification, and training, which do not rely on profiting by limiting access to the law. Their CEO makes $742,000 in salary, which is arguably a bit high for a non-profit.
- 8y ago

dmckeon 8y ago

Did UpCodes make any attempt to approach the copyright holder regarding licensing for republication or redistribution? edit: FTA: "UpCodes did not ask ICC to license the code"

Old_Thrashbarg 8y ago
Right, we did not. In addition, we've heard from a ton of people asking how we were able to do this. They each have a story about trying to do something in this space and trying to work with ICC (or one of the other ones) and getting nowhere. Half the stories are about people failing to convince them to let them touch their laws and half are about people who just assumed they're in the clear and then get a letter with 12 top corporate litigators saying they'd be suing them personally in federal court. I happen to be at a point in my life where I don't have much to lose and hence when I fell into the second bucket, was able to fight back. But yeah, they're trying to personally bankrupt us.