5 ms·

It technically isn't. The annotations in question are expert's analyses of the law, approved by the state. The defendant was told he could publish the actual l

by gnode 7y ago

It technically isn't. The annotations in question are expert's analyses of the law, approved by the state. The defendant was told he could publish the actual law, and his own analysis. However it gets really murky when “Georgia’s courts have cited to the annotations as authoritative sources on statutory meaning and legislative intent.” I can see the argument against this being freely publishable. If I wrote a textbook which explains some badly written and archaic laws really well, and lawyers and judges started to look to it as the de facto law, should that void my copyright? On the other hand, the public should have free access to the interpretation of the law as enforced.

mhb 7y ago
The public can access the law with annotations at many libraries. Undoubtedly it's very nice to use the online version, but the annotations are accessible without too much effort.
- vageli 7y ago
  > The public can access the law with annotations at many libraries. Undoubtedly it's very nice to use the online version, but the annotations are accessible without too much effort. This sentiment discounts whole segments of the population with mobility or visual impairments, for starters. Why shouldn't courts become more open over time to scrutiny, taking advantage of technical advances to increase transparency and by proxy faith in the institution of the courts?
  - mhb 7y ago
    Sure, that would be great and there could be a discussion around how that should be funded. But it's hyperbolic to suggest that because the law and annotations are only available for free at libraries in print form that they're not available.
inflatableDodo 7y ago
>If I wrote a textbook which explains some badly written and archaic laws really well, and lawyers and judges started to look to it as the de facto law, should that void my copyright? Given copyright only exists under the law, in the rare case that this happens, a sensible fudge would be to make a compulsary purchase of the copyright for the assessed market value, so it can become public domain. Much in the same way as you would do for any other property when you need to build municipal infrastructure through it. The law is essentially municipal infrastructure anywazy, so it isn't that much of a legal stretch.
- torstenvl 7y ago
  This is not a "rare case" at all. Judicial opinions frequently cite private materials such as the Restatements, law review articles, Black's Law Dictionary, paywalled scientific literature, and so on.
  - inflatableDodo 7y ago
    Are the Restatements, law review articles, Black's Law Dictionary and the paywalled scientific literature cited then 'de facto law'?
    - torstenvl 7y ago
      The Restatements and Black's are, yes. Law review articles - maybe, depending on context. Scientific understanding rarely gets encoded in the law as such, but see Roe v. Wade as an example - the trimester-based legal framework has given legal effect to a particular understanding of fetal viability. Side-note: I don't really care that my above post has been downvoted, but it seems pretty counter-productive to the HN cultural goal of intellectual discourse for people to downvote input from actual practitioners in the field just because they don't like the answer.
mamon 7y ago
> I can see the argument against this being freely publishable. If I wrote a textbook which explains some badly written and archaic laws really well, and lawyers and judges started to look to it as the de facto law, should that void my copyright? I would expect any reasonable government to do one of: - Write their own, non-copyrighted version of the law in question. - Pay you decent amout of money and become copyright owner prior to including your textbook in the official law code. I think that's the primary difference between civil and common law: in civil law legal system you cannot have "de facto laws" - either something is codified in form of (non-copyrtightable) parlimentary bill or executive order, or is not a law at all.
- gnode 7y ago
  > either something is codified in form of (non-copyrtightable) parlimentary bill or executive order, or is not a law at all. This isn't effectively true in practise. While there is no foundation of stare decisis in Civil law, there is the commonly recognised concept of jurisprudence constante (stable law). That is: judges will often look to precedent in making decisions, but are not bound by it. A pattern of past decisions will often be highly persuasive because there is interest in not interpreting the law arbitrarily, and courts tend not to want to make a decision they expect will be overturned on appeal.

by gnode 7y ago

mhb 7y ago

The public can access the law with annotations at many libraries. Undoubtedly it's very nice to use the online version, but the annotations are accessible without too much effort.

vageli 7y ago
> The public can access the law with annotations at many libraries. Undoubtedly it's very nice to use the online version, but the annotations are accessible without too much effort. This sentiment discounts whole segments of the population with mobility or visual impairments, for starters. Why shouldn't courts become more open over time to scrutiny, taking advantage of technical advances to increase transparency and by proxy faith in the institution of the courts?
- mhb 7y ago
  Sure, that would be great and there could be a discussion around how that should be funded. But it's hyperbolic to suggest that because the law and annotations are only available for free at libraries in print form that they're not available.

inflatableDodo 7y ago

>If I wrote a textbook which explains some badly written and archaic laws really well, and lawyers and judges started to look to it as the de facto law, should that void my copyright? Given copyright only exists under the law, in the rare case that this happens, a sensible fudge would be to make a compulsary purchase of the copyright for the assessed market value, so it can become public domain. Much in the same way as you would do for any other property when you need to build municipal infrastructure through it. The law is essentially municipal infrastructure anywazy, so it isn't that much of a legal stretch.

torstenvl 7y ago
This is not a "rare case" at all. Judicial opinions frequently cite private materials such as the Restatements, law review articles, Black's Law Dictionary, paywalled scientific literature, and so on.
- inflatableDodo 7y ago
  Are the Restatements, law review articles, Black's Law Dictionary and the paywalled scientific literature cited then 'de facto law'?
  - torstenvl 7y ago
    The Restatements and Black's are, yes. Law review articles - maybe, depending on context. Scientific understanding rarely gets encoded in the law as such, but see Roe v. Wade as an example - the trimester-based legal framework has given legal effect to a particular understanding of fetal viability. Side-note: I don't really care that my above post has been downvoted, but it seems pretty counter-productive to the HN cultural goal of intellectual discourse for people to downvote input from actual practitioners in the field just because they don't like the answer.

mamon 7y ago

> I can see the argument against this being freely publishable. If I wrote a textbook which explains some badly written and archaic laws really well, and lawyers and judges started to look to it as the de facto law, should that void my copyright? I would expect any reasonable government to do one of: - Write their own, non-copyrighted version of the law in question. - Pay you decent amout of money and become copyright owner prior to including your textbook in the official law code. I think that's the primary difference between civil and common law: in civil law legal system you cannot have "de facto laws" - either something is codified in form of (non-copyrtightable) parlimentary bill or executive order, or is not a law at all.

gnode 7y ago
> either something is codified in form of (non-copyrtightable) parlimentary bill or executive order, or is not a law at all. This isn't effectively true in practise. While there is no foundation of stare decisis in Civil law, there is the commonly recognised concept of jurisprudence constante (stable law). That is: judges will often look to precedent in making decisions, but are not bound by it. A pattern of past decisions will often be highly persuasive because there is interest in not interpreting the law arbitrarily, and courts tend not to want to make a decision they expect will be overturned on appeal.