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California law and regulation incorporate by reference[1] standards and regulations devised and drafted by groups outside of government like the International C

California law and regulation incorporate by reference[1] standards and regulations devised and drafted by groups outside of government like the International Code Council[2] and National Fire Protection Association[3]. This isn't bad per se since these groups know better than most legislators about the specific domain being treated (experts on structural fires writing fire codes, e.g.) These referenced regulations are protected by Copyrights owned not by the legislator or government, but by the original private authors. As a consequence, having access to these Copyrighted, commercialized, non-free documents becomes a requirement for anyone wishing to know what the law is. [1]: http://tr.ansfer.me/1cim http://tr.ansfer.me/1cim [2]: http://www.iccsafe.org/ http://www.iccsafe.org/ [3]: http://www.nfpa.org/ http://www.nfpa.org/

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
_delirium 14y ago
It might make sense for the state to negotiate a license for widespread free distribution before agreeing to incorporate a document by reference. While I support the end result of this petition, and think it's better than the status quo, it is a little weird to think that something I wrote could automatically become public domain if the state incorporates it by reference into a law. What if I didn't want them to? It'd be a lot cleaner if the state acquired the rights to the document before writing it into a law. Alternately, we could have truly public bodies, rather than quasi-public-sphere but actually private organizations, coming up with these model regulations.