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The supreme court recently upheld that people are legally allowed to know the laws that govern them without paying. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf

The supreme court recently upheld that people are legally allowed to know the laws that govern them without paying. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-1150_7m58.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-1150_7m58.pdf Only on hackernews would you read a comment saying that its fine for some corporation to hold the copyright on the law of the land.

criddell 5y ago
I didn't say it's fine and in another comment I added that nobody disagrees that codes referenced by laws should be freely available, but the organizations making those codes do need to be compensated. How happy would you be if you were an engineer who developed a set of equations around some dangerous piece of equipment and your consulting business was built around selling your expertise. Then the state government comes along and says "nice work, now it's the law". I don't know how you get around the insurance backdoor that I mentioned. Any ideas? Edit: Looking at the link you posted, that seems to be specifically about annotations to the law. How does it cover codes incorporated by reference? It might be right there and I'm not seeing it. I'm not used to reading these types of materials.
- shawnz 5y ago
  > How happy would you be if you were an engineer who developed a set of equations ... Then the state government comes along and says "nice work, now it's the law". Personally, I'd be ecstatic if my work could have such a wide reaching impact as that
  - criddell 5y ago
    I get that, but surely you understand how others might be upset at effectively losing the copyright on their work.
    - alasdair_ 5y ago
      You can’t copyright equations to begin with so this wouldn’t be an issue.
    - elliekelly 5y ago
      The organizations don’t write model code because they want to own the copyright they write model code so they, an unelected entity, can exercise an inordinate amount of power over legislation and draft regulations that further the business interests and line the pockets of their members. Even without copyright protection the special interest groups will continue writing model code exactly as they were except that member corps might have to kick in a bit more money now that ordinary citizens won’t be subsidizing their efforts to manipulate the democratic process.
    - gaganyaan 5y ago
      Simple, then don't have that work be part of enforceable code.
kingcharles 5y ago
Thank you for that. I hadn't seen that case before. I sued the State here in Illinois a couple of years ago because I tried to FOIA some statutes and was rejected under the copyright exemption. The State even had their database admin come to testify that they paid thousands of dollars a month to LexisNexis. I cited all the previous district court and appellate rulings (from other circuits), but ultimately lost.
- Dracophoenix 5y ago
  I thought you couldn't sue a state in its own courts. How did you manage to do it?
  - djrogers 5y ago
    It’s the other way around - you can’t sue a state in another state’s court: https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/franchise-tax-board-of-california-v-hyatt-2/ https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/franchise-tax-bo...
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > It’s the other way around - you can’t sue a state in another state’s court Sovereign immunity means you can’t sue a state in its own courts, either, except in the ways it has agreed to be suable, which tend to be a small subset of those reasons for which any other party would be.
  - kingcharles 5y ago
    I think you're referring to sovereign immunity. That doesn't apply to FOIA cases as the law gives a statutory right to sue.
sgent 5y ago
That was a very fact specific case that ruled that the GA legislature's copyright on the GA code was invalid. It's a stretch to expand that to something like the National Electrical Code or International Building Code since those copyrights are not owned by a legislature.
- xxpor 5y ago
  I'll have to read the opinion, but regulations are just as much part of the law as statues. If taxpayers have to foot the bill, so be it.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > regulations are just as much part of the law as statues. The ruling does apply to regulations, it doesn't apply to material referenced in regulations (either directly or indirectly), which a whole lot of copyrighted things are. (For an example of indirect reference, the HIPAA transactions and code sets rule regulations adopt CMS’s Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System as a standard code set for certain purposes. Great, as it's a federal government product, and therefore free from copyright burdens. Except that the “Level 1 codes” in the HCPCS are defined by reference as the AMA’s Current Procedure Terminology codes, and the definition of that code set is under copyright and not freely available.
rmbyrro 5y ago
It's actually quite surprising to read such comment here.

criddell 5y ago

I didn't say it's fine and in another comment I added that nobody disagrees that codes referenced by laws should be freely available, but the organizations making those codes do need to be compensated. How happy would you be if you were an engineer who developed a set of equations around some dangerous piece of equipment and your consulting business was built around selling your expertise. Then the state government comes along and says "nice work, now it's the law". I don't know how you get around the insurance backdoor that I mentioned. Any ideas? Edit: Looking at the link you posted, that seems to be specifically about annotations to the law. How does it cover codes incorporated by reference? It might be right there and I'm not seeing it. I'm not used to reading these types of materials.

shawnz 5y ago
> How happy would you be if you were an engineer who developed a set of equations ... Then the state government comes along and says "nice work, now it's the law". Personally, I'd be ecstatic if my work could have such a wide reaching impact as that
- criddell 5y ago
  I get that, but surely you understand how others might be upset at effectively losing the copyright on their work.
  - alasdair_ 5y ago
    You can’t copyright equations to begin with so this wouldn’t be an issue.
  - elliekelly 5y ago
    The organizations don’t write model code because they want to own the copyright they write model code so they, an unelected entity, can exercise an inordinate amount of power over legislation and draft regulations that further the business interests and line the pockets of their members. Even without copyright protection the special interest groups will continue writing model code exactly as they were except that member corps might have to kick in a bit more money now that ordinary citizens won’t be subsidizing their efforts to manipulate the democratic process.
  - gaganyaan 5y ago
    Simple, then don't have that work be part of enforceable code.

kingcharles 5y ago

Thank you for that. I hadn't seen that case before. I sued the State here in Illinois a couple of years ago because I tried to FOIA some statutes and was rejected under the copyright exemption. The State even had their database admin come to testify that they paid thousands of dollars a month to LexisNexis. I cited all the previous district court and appellate rulings (from other circuits), but ultimately lost.

Dracophoenix 5y ago
I thought you couldn't sue a state in its own courts. How did you manage to do it?
- djrogers 5y ago
  It’s the other way around - you can’t sue a state in another state’s court: https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/franchise-tax-board-of-california-v-hyatt-2/ https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/franchise-tax-bo...
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > It’s the other way around - you can’t sue a state in another state’s court Sovereign immunity means you can’t sue a state in its own courts, either, except in the ways it has agreed to be suable, which tend to be a small subset of those reasons for which any other party would be.
- kingcharles 5y ago
  I think you're referring to sovereign immunity. That doesn't apply to FOIA cases as the law gives a statutory right to sue.

sgent 5y ago

That was a very fact specific case that ruled that the GA legislature's copyright on the GA code was invalid. It's a stretch to expand that to something like the National Electrical Code or International Building Code since those copyrights are not owned by a legislature.

xxpor 5y ago
I'll have to read the opinion, but regulations are just as much part of the law as statues. If taxpayers have to foot the bill, so be it.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > regulations are just as much part of the law as statues. The ruling does apply to regulations, it doesn't apply to material referenced in regulations (either directly or indirectly), which a whole lot of copyrighted things are. (For an example of indirect reference, the HIPAA transactions and code sets rule regulations adopt CMS’s Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System as a standard code set for certain purposes. Great, as it's a federal government product, and therefore free from copyright burdens. Except that the “Level 1 codes” in the HCPCS are defined by reference as the AMA’s Current Procedure Terminology codes, and the definition of that code set is under copyright and not freely available.

rmbyrro 5y ago

It's actually quite surprising to read such comment here.