15 ms·

Appeals court upholds right to post public laws online

201 points by glitcher 3y ago

emilfihlman 3y ago
This is superb, and Europe should follow suit.
- sunbum 3y ago
  Isnt this more a case of the US lagging 1000 years behind like on card payments? All EU laws are publically available? And all laws in Denmark have been publically available for who knows how many years?
  - techsupporter 3y ago
    The law itself is broadly available (there are other cases going on about "reported" law which is the compendium put together by private editors), but they reference technical standards that aren't. For example, a hypothetical RCW 94.50.691 in Washington might read "all paving stones sold for use in residential koi pond construction shall conform to American Impervious Surface Standards Body Standard Code 72-67-243". It's that last part that would be copyrighted by a private body and only available for sale at $47,542 per license.
    - tialaramex 3y ago
      Yes, in the UK for example, there will be Primary Legislation which is all debated in Parliament and you can go read that online at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ And then there's "Secondary Legislation" some of which are available on that site but others are not. All these require Primary Legislation to enable them, but it means e.g. the Primary Legislation might say something like, "All Circus Clowns are also prohibited from entering a Red Zone as shall be decided from time-to-time by the Minister for Circus Clowns" and now that Minister just gets to make a Red Zone list, parliament says they get to do that and it prohibits Circus Clowns from entering - Parliament doesn't get to vote on updates to the list (but they do get to decide their own Prime Minister, which is why we didn't have Liz Truss for very long) It is not uncommon for either Primary or Secondary Legislation to cite documents which are copyrighted by somebody else. Typically they are available at your public library, but as in the case decided here, that's not exactly convenient when compared to using Google.
  - jaclaz 3y ago
    No, in Europe we have the same problem with ISO norms and likely on some national technical ones, strictly speaking they are not Laws, but they are often cited either in the Laws and/or exposed to the public through labeling. An example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17587770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17587770
    - andylynch 3y ago
      Bang on. Until recently I had several reams of MiFID and its implemting regulations on my desk, they sensibly are very closely aligned with standards, which co-evolve with them- so they are filled with references to ISO20022, 10383, 17442 and so many others. That said, even for our very complex business needing to refer to the standards was very rare. (It still would absolutely have saved time and money, but finding someone to commit actual money to BSI or ANSI membership can sometimes get lost in bureaucracy)
    - f1shy 3y ago
      The case with VDE is a good example, where the norms have law force. In contrast DIN makes a specific statement, that the norms are just recommendations (as it should!) and have no law force. Even then, often through "state-of-the-art" obligations, they end up having law force. That is BAD idea.
      - helmchenlord 3y ago
        VDE rules do NOT have law force, as mentioned in my other reply. Please stop repeating this.
  - emilfihlman 3y ago
    Unfortunately not. Laws themselves are usually available for free online, but standards that laws and statues reference are in general not, and interpretation of law from cases is not in general directly available even if the cases themselves are.
- f1shy 3y ago
  Lets hope... I've seen far too many private organisations basically writing legislation. (e.g. VDE)
- guerby 3y ago
  In France it's done this way: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/loda/article_lc/LEGIARTI000020750611/2009-06-18 https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/loda/article_lc/LEGIARTI00002... "Les normes sont d'application volontaire. Toutefois, les normes peuvent être rendues d'application obligatoire par arrêté signé du ministre chargé de l'industrie et du ou des ministres intéressés. Les normes rendues d'application obligatoire sont consultables gratuitement sur le site internet de l'Association française de normalisation." If a law makes a norm mandatory then those norms must be free for eveyrone to read.
pavon 3y ago
Excellent ruling. The next question in my mind is whether incorporating private standards into legislation without compensation violates the the takings clause of the constitution. It is well established that this clause applies to intangible property such as copyright. Furthermore I disagree with some aspects of the courts assessment regarding the purpose and impact to revenue. On the first point, there is a large overlap between people who need to know the legal requirements for building and those who want to know best practices - the later is nearly a subset of the former, especially once these best practices become the law. Furthermore, the distribution of incorporated standards has historically been a legal gray area at best. Just because there was little evidence of lost revenue in the past doesn't mean there won't be significant lost revenue after it becomes unambiguously legal.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  "Let's put it like this: we can use your standards in our legislation, and everyone will need training and information and assistance with the more technical aspects of the standard, and you can derive revenue from that. Or we can use some other standards, and yours will have approximately zero value to anyone. What do you think?"
  - tialaramex 3y ago
    Further, if in fact your standard was the only possibility (and so we can't have a different standard), there was in fact no creative element to your standard, and so it not only isn't protected from copying and redistribution for the purpose of informing people as to the law, but never protected at all since it had no creative element. And yes, in practice we see that there is much more demand for relatively compact, opinionated books about something standard (e.g. "Beautiful C++" the most recent book from Kate Gregory) than there is for the large volumes of tremendously dry technical documentation which makes up the standard itself, a draft of which (nobody who matters cares about the "official" document) is here: https://timsong-cpp.github.io/cppwp/ https://timsong-cpp.github.io/cppwp/ I'd guess that you'll shift way more of a video course on the correct use of fire extinguishers than you would of a dry document specifying exactly how many litres of what retardants shall be provided to fight a fire of so-and-such proportions. Just make sure you don't persuade legislators to make watching your video a legal requirement and you can sell those for a nice healthy profit.
chankstein38 3y ago
So, prior to this ruling, there were laws that the public couldn't get access to? I assume you could get them from magistrates and stuff though still, right? Or was it a complete lack of access? Obviously online is still way preferred it just is crazy to me to think there was a law somewhere that you couldn't easily get the full text of. How the heck am I supposed to follow a law I can't read? lol
- racingmars 3y ago
  The problem was that the laws referred to commercial documents from standards bodies. Rather than reproducing the entire text of the standard in the law itself (which would be public), the law says "Buildings must comply with XYZ standard 123," where XYZ 123 has to be purchased from the standards body and they claim copyright on it. This ruling says that providing that XYZ 123 standard online for non-commercial purposes is fair use if that standard is incorporated into the law.
  - chankstein38 3y ago
    OK thank you! I legit misunderstood, I appreciate the clarification!
- lmkg 3y ago
  This is about Incorporation By Reference. For example, ASTM (a standards body) published a safety standard for children's toys. This was just a book that they sell, named ASTM F963. Then, in 2008, Congress passed a law that all toys sold in the US must adhere to ASTM F963. The law itself can be publicly viewed. But the law does not directly include the text of ASTM F963. It just refers to it by name. The standard is copyright ASTM, and they sell copies for about a hundred bucks. For better or worse, the law refers to the current version of the standard. It's been updated a few times, and the legal requirement is to use the most recent version. The law has not changed, but the requirements have. I am given to understand that on the local level this is common for building codes too. A municipality will say that buildings must follow the safety standards put out by some professional body or other relating to fireproofing lumber or framing or whatever.
horsawlarway 3y ago
The fact that this even made it to trial is flabbergasting, and truly highlights how unacceptably broken our copyright system is. They were suing people for literally explaining the laws to people... as a violation of their copyright. If that's something we have to even consider - I want this fucking garbage copyright system destroyed.
- cvoss 3y ago
  They were suing people for copying copyright-protected works. The usual arguing over exceptions ensued. In this particular case, is the problem that copyright laws confer too many rights to the owners, or is the problem that legislative bodies are adopting inaccessible text as law?
  - horsawlarway 3y ago
    > They were suing people for copying copyright-protected works. Those works are our literal laws. Suing people for sharing the law is not an acceptable position in ANY discussion. Period. Full fucking stop. There is NO way you can claim to be any sort of democracy if we cannot talk about our laws, I don't fucking care how we got there (I do, but not for this discussion) - the fact that we are here AT ALL is a HUGE flashing alarm blaring about how fucking off the rails the laws here have gotten.
    - smhenderson 3y ago
      I agree with the decision and in principle absolutely agree with what you are saying about our laws. But you're oversimplifying the case here. They weren't complaining that the law was being published, they were complaining that their standards were published. The court agreed with PR that once those standards were incorporated into law, they were subject to fair use publication under the auspices of making available and explaining our laws to the public. The courts agreed and here we are. But as another user wrote, this wasn't about copyrighting the law, it was about the inclusion of copyrighted material in the law and whether or not it fell under a different category with regards to fair use. I'm sure I'm oversimplifying or missing something too, but I, who am generally opposed to how copyright is currently handled in the US, can see that there is more nuance to this case than your post admits to.
dwater 3y ago
This is great, I've suffered as a result of how this was previously. I built a garage and had it inspected. I failed an electrical inspection and was given a reference in the National Electrical Code. When I went to look it up to figure out how to remediate, most of the links were trying to sell a copy. NEC wants $145 or a $11.99 monthly subscription. I had to find an illicit copy in order to comply with my local regulations.
- tzs 3y ago
  I don't know how long it has been this way, but for at least the last few years you can read it online for free [1] if you create an account at the publisher's site, nfpa.org. Here's a list of the codes NFPA publishes [2]. The NEC is NFPA 70. Checking a few random ones, the ones that were not obsolete or withdrawn are available for online free reading. That includes several past editions. E.g., for the NEC the free online access includes editions going back to 1968. (Old editions are sometimes relevant because local codes often lag in adopting the latest version). [1] https://www.nfpa.org/Codes-and-Standards/All-Codes-and-Standards/Free-access https://www.nfpa.org/Codes-and-Standards/All-Codes-and-Stand... [2] https://www.nfpa.org/Codes-and-Standards/All-Codes-and-Standards/Codes-and-Standards https://www.nfpa.org/Codes-and-Standards/All-Codes-and-Stand...
  - nico 3y ago
    Not op. Thank you for the resources > if you create an account at the publisher's site, nfpa.org If you need to create an account, that’s only free as in beer, but not free as in libre, which in my opinion every law/code should be
- f1shy 3y ago
  In Germany as far as I know (please somebody correct if knows better!) there is an association called "VDE" which is private. They make norms, which you must comply with. You have to pay for them, are are relatively expensive (much more than the cost of the editing and the paper in any case). I find it incredible, because the law you are subject to, is not public. But even much worst: basically the state has delegated writing laws to a private company. Please note! VDE is an association of many private companies, they could basically make a new norm, that some kind of cable, devices or such is now required, and you have to comply! That is the wolf taking care of the herd. There was already a case, where they tried to make obligatory a kind of better RCD with microprocessor, but if backfired spectacularly... but it could happen any time again.
sullija722 3y ago
It is great to see this made clear in the U.S., as it facilitates the flow of information and efficiency. Canada also needs to do this for legally mandated regulations referring to the CSA, NRC, etc.
mikece 3y ago
Well, there goes my defense that I couldn't know the law because it was copyrighted and I didn't have the money to buy a copy of the law in order to know what I could and could not do.
- nico 3y ago
  Unfortunately that’s not an accepted defense. Ignorance of the law doesn’t excuse you from complying
  - mikece 3y ago
    Ignorance of the law when you could have known is no defense. If the law is copyrighted and payment is required to even know it, that changes things.
  - f1shy 3y ago
    This principle is cited way too often in a more general way as it really apply. Is not so easy as "you must know every single rule, norm, law that exist, with no possible excuses". If you are not in a reasonable position to have access to the norm, you do, and it do works, can defend yourself on that basis. I had successfully defended myself in two cases where the transit law was a little diffuse, but just saying "I understood it differently, I'm sorry"
bluGill 3y ago
The conflict here is it costs a lot of effort (time and money) to do the hard work of figuring out what a good code should be. Used to be large cities (New York) would pay for it, and small towns would copy it - which meant if you lived in a smaller city you were freeloading off of New York (and in some cases you had to do something that made sense for New York but not where you were) which is unfair to New York's taxpayers. By have some organization create a standard towns can more equally share the cost of building a good standard. Standards organizations need to pay the engineers who do all the complex calculations to figure out what works. However I think everyone agrees the law shouldn't be hidden from people who need to obey it.
- mistrial9 3y ago
  you are not wrong, but missing quite a bit. In California and elsewhere, small variations in building and electrical code are used to stall, or make conflicting requirements using vague wording, that gives excess discretionary power to inspectors. In a large, wealthy city like San Francisco, inspectors routinely stall projects, or exert excessive discretionary powers over construction. Why? obviously it is an entry to corruption, but don't overlook the convenience to the city department of being completely and totally in control, to stall.. while being on salary.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    Most places are not nearly as bad as CA. You are correct that codes are also used for corruption, but in many places they are closer to the ideal (they never hit the ideal) of ensuring safety so that you don't endanger the community or rescue workers with your property.
- helmchenlord 3y ago
  > Used to be large cities (New York) would pay for it, and small towns would copy it It will always be beyond me why literally every tiny town in the US seems to think they're a special snowflake with veeery different requirements than everybody else. There should be base codes for literally everything coming down from the federal or at maximum state level that you may be allowed to stricten in very specific points for very specific, publicly discussed reasons. The need to "develop" such a code more than once should never exist. Everything else is not just unfair to the taxpayers who paid for these developments, it's simply unfair to your citizens. Why should they have different rights just because they happen to live in a different federal state?
dramm 3y ago
Can't wait to get my hands on more of the RTCA standards documents behind aviation equipment/avionics regulations. Instead of having to beg borrow or steal just to be able to provide free help/advice to organizations like the FAA. Lots of input there from taxpayer funded organizations like the FAA and Mitre and MIT Lincon Labs and us tax payers end up expected to buy it back again...

201 points by glitcher 3y ago

emilfihlman 3y ago

This is superb, and Europe should follow suit.

sunbum 3y ago
Isnt this more a case of the US lagging 1000 years behind like on card payments? All EU laws are publically available? And all laws in Denmark have been publically available for who knows how many years?
- techsupporter 3y ago
  The law itself is broadly available (there are other cases going on about "reported" law which is the compendium put together by private editors), but they reference technical standards that aren't. For example, a hypothetical RCW 94.50.691 in Washington might read "all paving stones sold for use in residential koi pond construction shall conform to American Impervious Surface Standards Body Standard Code 72-67-243". It's that last part that would be copyrighted by a private body and only available for sale at $47,542 per license.
  - tialaramex 3y ago
    Yes, in the UK for example, there will be Primary Legislation which is all debated in Parliament and you can go read that online at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ And then there's "Secondary Legislation" some of which are available on that site but others are not. All these require Primary Legislation to enable them, but it means e.g. the Primary Legislation might say something like, "All Circus Clowns are also prohibited from entering a Red Zone as shall be decided from time-to-time by the Minister for Circus Clowns" and now that Minister just gets to make a Red Zone list, parliament says they get to do that and it prohibits Circus Clowns from entering - Parliament doesn't get to vote on updates to the list (but they do get to decide their own Prime Minister, which is why we didn't have Liz Truss for very long) It is not uncommon for either Primary or Secondary Legislation to cite documents which are copyrighted by somebody else. Typically they are available at your public library, but as in the case decided here, that's not exactly convenient when compared to using Google.
- jaclaz 3y ago
  No, in Europe we have the same problem with ISO norms and likely on some national technical ones, strictly speaking they are not Laws, but they are often cited either in the Laws and/or exposed to the public through labeling. An example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17587770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17587770
  - andylynch 3y ago
    Bang on. Until recently I had several reams of MiFID and its implemting regulations on my desk, they sensibly are very closely aligned with standards, which co-evolve with them- so they are filled with references to ISO20022, 10383, 17442 and so many others. That said, even for our very complex business needing to refer to the standards was very rare. (It still would absolutely have saved time and money, but finding someone to commit actual money to BSI or ANSI membership can sometimes get lost in bureaucracy)
  - f1shy 3y ago
    The case with VDE is a good example, where the norms have law force. In contrast DIN makes a specific statement, that the norms are just recommendations (as it should!) and have no law force. Even then, often through "state-of-the-art" obligations, they end up having law force. That is BAD idea.
    - helmchenlord 3y ago
      VDE rules do NOT have law force, as mentioned in my other reply. Please stop repeating this.
- emilfihlman 3y ago
  Unfortunately not. Laws themselves are usually available for free online, but standards that laws and statues reference are in general not, and interpretation of law from cases is not in general directly available even if the cases themselves are.
f1shy 3y ago
Lets hope... I've seen far too many private organisations basically writing legislation. (e.g. VDE)
guerby 3y ago
In France it's done this way: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/loda/article_lc/LEGIARTI000020750611/2009-06-18 https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/loda/article_lc/LEGIARTI00002... "Les normes sont d'application volontaire. Toutefois, les normes peuvent être rendues d'application obligatoire par arrêté signé du ministre chargé de l'industrie et du ou des ministres intéressés. Les normes rendues d'application obligatoire sont consultables gratuitement sur le site internet de l'Association française de normalisation." If a law makes a norm mandatory then those norms must be free for eveyrone to read.

pavon 3y ago

Excellent ruling. The next question in my mind is whether incorporating private standards into legislation without compensation violates the the takings clause of the constitution. It is well established that this clause applies to intangible property such as copyright. Furthermore I disagree with some aspects of the courts assessment regarding the purpose and impact to revenue. On the first point, there is a large overlap between people who need to know the legal requirements for building and those who want to know best practices - the later is nearly a subset of the former, especially once these best practices become the law. Furthermore, the distribution of incorporated standards has historically been a legal gray area at best. Just because there was little evidence of lost revenue in the past doesn't mean there won't be significant lost revenue after it becomes unambiguously legal.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
"Let's put it like this: we can use your standards in our legislation, and everyone will need training and information and assistance with the more technical aspects of the standard, and you can derive revenue from that. Or we can use some other standards, and yours will have approximately zero value to anyone. What do you think?"
- tialaramex 3y ago
  Further, if in fact your standard was the only possibility (and so we can't have a different standard), there was in fact no creative element to your standard, and so it not only isn't protected from copying and redistribution for the purpose of informing people as to the law, but never protected at all since it had no creative element. And yes, in practice we see that there is much more demand for relatively compact, opinionated books about something standard (e.g. "Beautiful C++" the most recent book from Kate Gregory) than there is for the large volumes of tremendously dry technical documentation which makes up the standard itself, a draft of which (nobody who matters cares about the "official" document) is here: https://timsong-cpp.github.io/cppwp/ https://timsong-cpp.github.io/cppwp/ I'd guess that you'll shift way more of a video course on the correct use of fire extinguishers than you would of a dry document specifying exactly how many litres of what retardants shall be provided to fight a fire of so-and-such proportions. Just make sure you don't persuade legislators to make watching your video a legal requirement and you can sell those for a nice healthy profit.

chankstein38 3y ago

So, prior to this ruling, there were laws that the public couldn't get access to? I assume you could get them from magistrates and stuff though still, right? Or was it a complete lack of access? Obviously online is still way preferred it just is crazy to me to think there was a law somewhere that you couldn't easily get the full text of. How the heck am I supposed to follow a law I can't read? lol

racingmars 3y ago
The problem was that the laws referred to commercial documents from standards bodies. Rather than reproducing the entire text of the standard in the law itself (which would be public), the law says "Buildings must comply with XYZ standard 123," where XYZ 123 has to be purchased from the standards body and they claim copyright on it. This ruling says that providing that XYZ 123 standard online for non-commercial purposes is fair use if that standard is incorporated into the law.
- chankstein38 3y ago
  OK thank you! I legit misunderstood, I appreciate the clarification!
lmkg 3y ago
This is about Incorporation By Reference. For example, ASTM (a standards body) published a safety standard for children's toys. This was just a book that they sell, named ASTM F963. Then, in 2008, Congress passed a law that all toys sold in the US must adhere to ASTM F963. The law itself can be publicly viewed. But the law does not directly include the text of ASTM F963. It just refers to it by name. The standard is copyright ASTM, and they sell copies for about a hundred bucks. For better or worse, the law refers to the current version of the standard. It's been updated a few times, and the legal requirement is to use the most recent version. The law has not changed, but the requirements have. I am given to understand that on the local level this is common for building codes too. A municipality will say that buildings must follow the safety standards put out by some professional body or other relating to fireproofing lumber or framing or whatever.

horsawlarway 3y ago

The fact that this even made it to trial is flabbergasting, and truly highlights how unacceptably broken our copyright system is. They were suing people for literally explaining the laws to people... as a violation of their copyright. If that's something we have to even consider - I want this fucking garbage copyright system destroyed.

cvoss 3y ago
They were suing people for copying copyright-protected works. The usual arguing over exceptions ensued. In this particular case, is the problem that copyright laws confer too many rights to the owners, or is the problem that legislative bodies are adopting inaccessible text as law?
- horsawlarway 3y ago
  > They were suing people for copying copyright-protected works. Those works are our literal laws. Suing people for sharing the law is not an acceptable position in ANY discussion. Period. Full fucking stop. There is NO way you can claim to be any sort of democracy if we cannot talk about our laws, I don't fucking care how we got there (I do, but not for this discussion) - the fact that we are here AT ALL is a HUGE flashing alarm blaring about how fucking off the rails the laws here have gotten.
  - smhenderson 3y ago
    I agree with the decision and in principle absolutely agree with what you are saying about our laws. But you're oversimplifying the case here. They weren't complaining that the law was being published, they were complaining that their standards were published. The court agreed with PR that once those standards were incorporated into law, they were subject to fair use publication under the auspices of making available and explaining our laws to the public. The courts agreed and here we are. But as another user wrote, this wasn't about copyrighting the law, it was about the inclusion of copyrighted material in the law and whether or not it fell under a different category with regards to fair use. I'm sure I'm oversimplifying or missing something too, but I, who am generally opposed to how copyright is currently handled in the US, can see that there is more nuance to this case than your post admits to.

dwater 3y ago

This is great, I've suffered as a result of how this was previously. I built a garage and had it inspected. I failed an electrical inspection and was given a reference in the National Electrical Code. When I went to look it up to figure out how to remediate, most of the links were trying to sell a copy. NEC wants $145 or a $11.99 monthly subscription. I had to find an illicit copy in order to comply with my local regulations.

tzs 3y ago
I don't know how long it has been this way, but for at least the last few years you can read it online for free [1] if you create an account at the publisher's site, nfpa.org. Here's a list of the codes NFPA publishes [2]. The NEC is NFPA 70. Checking a few random ones, the ones that were not obsolete or withdrawn are available for online free reading. That includes several past editions. E.g., for the NEC the free online access includes editions going back to 1968. (Old editions are sometimes relevant because local codes often lag in adopting the latest version). [1] https://www.nfpa.org/Codes-and-Standards/All-Codes-and-Standards/Free-access https://www.nfpa.org/Codes-and-Standards/All-Codes-and-Stand... [2] https://www.nfpa.org/Codes-and-Standards/All-Codes-and-Standards/Codes-and-Standards https://www.nfpa.org/Codes-and-Standards/All-Codes-and-Stand...
- nico 3y ago
  Not op. Thank you for the resources > if you create an account at the publisher's site, nfpa.org If you need to create an account, that’s only free as in beer, but not free as in libre, which in my opinion every law/code should be
f1shy 3y ago
In Germany as far as I know (please somebody correct if knows better!) there is an association called "VDE" which is private. They make norms, which you must comply with. You have to pay for them, are are relatively expensive (much more than the cost of the editing and the paper in any case). I find it incredible, because the law you are subject to, is not public. But even much worst: basically the state has delegated writing laws to a private company. Please note! VDE is an association of many private companies, they could basically make a new norm, that some kind of cable, devices or such is now required, and you have to comply! That is the wolf taking care of the herd. There was already a case, where they tried to make obligatory a kind of better RCD with microprocessor, but if backfired spectacularly... but it could happen any time again.

sullija722 3y ago

It is great to see this made clear in the U.S., as it facilitates the flow of information and efficiency. Canada also needs to do this for legally mandated regulations referring to the CSA, NRC, etc.

mikece 3y ago

Well, there goes my defense that I couldn't know the law because it was copyrighted and I didn't have the money to buy a copy of the law in order to know what I could and could not do.

nico 3y ago
Unfortunately that’s not an accepted defense. Ignorance of the law doesn’t excuse you from complying
- mikece 3y ago
  Ignorance of the law when you could have known is no defense. If the law is copyrighted and payment is required to even know it, that changes things.
- f1shy 3y ago
  This principle is cited way too often in a more general way as it really apply. Is not so easy as "you must know every single rule, norm, law that exist, with no possible excuses". If you are not in a reasonable position to have access to the norm, you do, and it do works, can defend yourself on that basis. I had successfully defended myself in two cases where the transit law was a little diffuse, but just saying "I understood it differently, I'm sorry"

bluGill 3y ago

The conflict here is it costs a lot of effort (time and money) to do the hard work of figuring out what a good code should be. Used to be large cities (New York) would pay for it, and small towns would copy it - which meant if you lived in a smaller city you were freeloading off of New York (and in some cases you had to do something that made sense for New York but not where you were) which is unfair to New York's taxpayers. By have some organization create a standard towns can more equally share the cost of building a good standard. Standards organizations need to pay the engineers who do all the complex calculations to figure out what works. However I think everyone agrees the law shouldn't be hidden from people who need to obey it.

mistrial9 3y ago
you are not wrong, but missing quite a bit. In California and elsewhere, small variations in building and electrical code are used to stall, or make conflicting requirements using vague wording, that gives excess discretionary power to inspectors. In a large, wealthy city like San Francisco, inspectors routinely stall projects, or exert excessive discretionary powers over construction. Why? obviously it is an entry to corruption, but don't overlook the convenience to the city department of being completely and totally in control, to stall.. while being on salary.
- bluGill 3y ago
  Most places are not nearly as bad as CA. You are correct that codes are also used for corruption, but in many places they are closer to the ideal (they never hit the ideal) of ensuring safety so that you don't endanger the community or rescue workers with your property.
helmchenlord 3y ago
> Used to be large cities (New York) would pay for it, and small towns would copy it It will always be beyond me why literally every tiny town in the US seems to think they're a special snowflake with veeery different requirements than everybody else. There should be base codes for literally everything coming down from the federal or at maximum state level that you may be allowed to stricten in very specific points for very specific, publicly discussed reasons. The need to "develop" such a code more than once should never exist. Everything else is not just unfair to the taxpayers who paid for these developments, it's simply unfair to your citizens. Why should they have different rights just because they happen to live in a different federal state?

dramm 3y ago

Can't wait to get my hands on more of the RTCA standards documents behind aviation equipment/avionics regulations. Instead of having to beg borrow or steal just to be able to provide free help/advice to organizations like the FAA. Lots of input there from taxpayer funded organizations like the FAA and Mitre and MIT Lincon Labs and us tax payers end up expected to buy it back again...