12 ms·

You cannot have a digital copy of the DC Code

219 points by cmaggard 14y ago

fleitz 14y ago
Bullshit. There is no way the law is subject to copyright. The contractor may claim copyright but I doubt it would standup in court at all.
- kylemhill 14y ago
  When you live in the District, you get used to a certain level of absurdist federally mandated bullshit.
  - darkarmani 14y ago
    It's like getting used to snow, humidity, or traffic in other places (oh, wait you get those too)
- jellicle 14y ago
  Depends on what you mean by stand up - https://blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/2008/04/16/can-states-copyright-their-statutes/ https://blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/2008/04/16/can-states-... Many states, publishers, and other entities try to claim copyright in parts of the published law: http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/gacode/ http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/gacode/ Some activists have objected: https://public.resource.org/index.html https://public.resource.org/index.html It's an ongoing problem and is not "bullshit" at all.
  - fleitz 14y ago
    There's a world of difference between what a lawyer will claim and what a judge will find. The key is fighting back, copy the laws in California, add misdemeanour barratry as a counterclaim as well as SLAPP.
- jbronn 14y ago
  Although it's absurd, it's been claimed many times before. For example, municipalities incorporate model building codes as law, which publishers objected to being placed online. In 2002 this issue bubbled up to the 5th circuit which held that the laws were not subject to copyright protection. The case is Veeck v. Southern Building Code Congress, 293 F.3d 791: https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/293/293.F3d.791.99-40632.html https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/293/293.F3d.791.99... This is compelling precedent if the copyright dispute ever reaches the federal district court in DC.
  - brudgers 14y ago
    I was thinking of Veek as I was reading the article. <IANAL> But my understanding is that model codes can by protected by copyright, but that once they are adopted as law, they cannot be. On the other hand, lack of public access is due to the particular option DC chose - Municode.com has been around for at least twelve years. We used it as the reference for city employees when I worked in city government. http://www.municode.com/Library http://www.municode.com/Library
  - mapt 14y ago
    I would argue that if a "law" is not fully in the public domain, it is formally unconstitutionally vague. If the information within is legally a secret, something I cannot acquire without pursuing a commercial arrangement with a private party on a voluntary basis, then the courts cannot reasonably expect me to understand that information, and the legislature has failed to bind me to obey those rules in the eyes of the due process clause of the Constitution. I don't see it as requiring a special prohibition of "copyrighting laws", it stems directly from the fact that 'not public domain' is a variably mitigated example of 'secret'.
- tantalor 14y ago
  It might be a lot like a cookbook. A recipe (law) cannot be copyrighted, but a book of recipes (laws) can be. http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html
  - antiterra 14y ago
    It's almost never that simple. For example, a (regular) telephone book cannot be copyrighted[1] but medical billing codes for insurance can be[2] (so far.) [1] Feist Pubs., Inc. v. Rural Tel. Svc. Co., Inc. - 499 U.S. 340 (1991) http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=499&invol=340 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&#3... [2] Practice Management v AMA - 121 F.3d 516 (9th Cir. 1997) [writ denied by SCOTUS] http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/tfisher/IP/1997%20PMI%20Abridged.pdf http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/tfisher/IP/1997%20PMI%20...
- fnordfnordfnord 14y ago
  Of course it is bullshit. Here is the latest progress (that I am aware of) on that front. https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/293/293.F3d.791.99-40632.html https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/293/293.F3d.791.99... >>For the reasons discussed above, we REVERSE the district court's judgment against Peter Veeck, and REMAND with instructions to dismiss SBCCI's claims. I'm told that this decision does not make precedent for the whole US, but rather only that which is under the United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. See also: https://law.resource.org/ https://law.resource.org/
dclowd9901 14y ago
This article almost makes me want to create my own automated scanner/ocr just to distribute it in torrent.
- joshdick 14y ago
  That didn't end up well for the last guy who tried it ...
  - rosser 14y ago
    Actually, assuming you're referring to Aaron Swartz, he came out reasonably well from his efforts with PACER, which is a lot more analogous to the situation in TFA than JSTOR.
- Avenger42 14y ago
  Can't you do that, then file for declaratory judgment that you didn't infringe because the result is (or should be) in the public domain?
axusgrad 14y ago
You can look at the DC Code from links here http://dc.gov/DC/Government/DC+Courts+&+Laws/DC+Laws http://dc.gov/DC/Government/DC+Courts+&+Laws/DC+Laws, but you cannot have it to re-use or republish. The guy posting does a lot with open maps, so he probably wants to reuse the data in more interesting way.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
JackFr 14y ago
I've long felt that novel legal arguments should be considered intellectual property. Once lawyers are forced to pay to cite precedent, the whole landscape will change....
- LockeWatts 14y ago
  It also widens the already massive gap in the legal defense the poor get versus the legal defense the rich get. Let's not make class warfare easier.
- timrogers 14y ago
  I'm confused by this comment. What change would you expect? What would the benefit be? (Just interested.)
  - joe_the_user 14y ago
    I believe he's hoping the whole legal system would be forced to become less ponderous - sad and not terribly admirable hope. Those people who supported absurdity on the principle that "no one would let such absurdity stand" are a sad footnote in the advance of bureaucratic complexity. The best you can say is they probably haven't done as much damage as the simply greedy.
  - joe_the_user 14y ago
    I believe he's hoping the whole legal system would be forced to become less ponderous - sad and not terribly admirable hope. Those people who supported absurdity on the principle that "no one would let such absurdity stand" are a sad footnote in the advance of bureaucratic complexity. The best you can say is they probably haven't done as much damage as the simply greedy.
ludflu 14y ago
as someone who works for TR, this makes me sad.
- tantalor 14y ago
  TR?
  - m0nastic 14y ago
    Thomson Reuters, the parent company of Westlaw (the contractor who presently has the contract in DC)
- callahad 14y ago
  As a former TR employee, I can empathize. There is immense value in the West Key Number System, editorial headnotes, aggregating everything, and transforming documents into a consistent, uniform representation. Still, it does feel "off" that TR and Lexis have exclusive contracts for digital delivery of codes and case law for so many jurisdictions. The Zotero lawsuit in Sept. 2008 broke a lot of my faith. I stuck around for a further two years trying to change things as best I could, and even managed to reshape TR's open source software policy, but I couldn't resolve the cognitive dissonance around competent legal practice virtually requiring a subscription to Westlaw and/or Lexis Nexis. So, I got out. Ended up way happier. You can get out, too. TR has plenty of brilliant folks--engineers, managers, and executives alike--but it's hard to have organization-scale clarity of purpose and execution when you're dealing with 60,000 people.
thinkcomp 14y ago
Federal laws are not copyrightable per 17 U.S.C. § 105: http://www.plainsite.org/laws/index.html?id=13347 http://www.plainsite.org/laws/index.html?id=13347 I'm not sure if D.C. is considered part of the federal government, but if it is, then there's nothing to worry about in terms of copyright violations.
- pilsetnieks 14y ago
  I assume that it is not the laws that are copyrighted but this concrete representation of them - the same way, say, Beethoven's 5th symphony is not copyrighted but recordings of its performances are - to the performers, not the composer.
- kylemhill 14y ago
  It's been its own entity since 1973. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_Home_Rule_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_Home_Rule_...
throwaway420 14y ago
This is certainly a problem, but I see a larger, more troubling problem here associated with access to the legal code. Yes, what laws exist should be made available in as many formats as possible, including some easily accessible electronic format. I doubt that anybody here would disagree with that. But the real issue here is that there are so many laws and regulations that it becomes impossible for any one human being to know all of them. Any person who goes about their day in a normal fashion breaks multiple laws every day. When the state starts policing moral and ethical behavior rather than merely defending people against aggression, you come up with page after page of laws and it becomes impossible to know what is correct. This culture of "every problem needs a law to solve it" is in my opinion the priority here, not merely making thousands of pages of useless laws somehow more accessible. You're never going to read them anyway.
- jrs235 14y ago
  The people we have elected to make the laws have steadily moved in the direction that "we the people" on a jury (grand or otherwise) can't determine whether someone has committed a crime or not so everything must be codified so we no longer can determine our own cultural and common law. Perhaps we should focus on writing laws that protect people and allow common sense back into our court rooms? These "protecting" laws would primarily used by appellate courts to throw out "bad" convictions (i.e. ones where race or social class likely were used as motive to convict someone, thus preventing legal injustices such as were committed during the Jim Crow era).
- rayiner 14y ago
  There has never been a successful society of an serious complexity that had law that could be codified in a form where one person could understand them all. In feudal England prior to the ascension of the common law courts, instead of law you had power: the King (acting through representatives) or lower lords would adjudicate disputes and regulate society. Saying "we have too many laws--nobody can know them all at once" is like saying "Linux has too many lines of code--nobody can understand it all at once." The complexity is unavoidable. You can shift it around, but you can't get rid of it.
  - 14y ago
jrs235 14y ago
Aren't statutes and laws merely facts? I thought facts aren't protected by copyright.
- timrogers 14y ago
  Not sure they can be considered fait accompli necessarily because they are "works". The rule [1] they can't be copyright by virtue of what they are seems more compelling. [1] http://macwright.org/2013/02/14/the-law-is-public-domain.html http://macwright.org/2013/02/14/the-law-is-public-domain.htm...
lignuist 14y ago
Crowdsource a complete transcription and make it public. That should be legal, but I'm not totally sure, since I don't have a copy of the law.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
tantalor 14y ago
You could make your own. Take the bills (which are free) and compile them yourself. Boom, your own copy of the DC Code. You can then release it under a permissive license or whatever. The hard part is compiling the bills. From the blog, Each bill is then downloaded by an employee of the company that wins the contract for maintaining the bill. This person must hold a law degree from an ABA accredited law school, and they cannot be a subcontractor. (http://macwright.org/2013/02/13/the-code-compiled.html http://macwright.org/2013/02/13/the-code-compiled.html) This is why the code can be copyrighted. Like a cookbook which extends a recipe with "substantial literary expression", the code extends the bills with creative expression.
- tmcw 14y ago
  The action/creativity editing of bills into the law is not a justification for copyright, and it has not been used by West (or any other entity) to claim copyright. West claims copyright on design, annotations, citation, and database structure.
  - tantalor 14y ago
    So if they don't claim copyright on the law text itself, why not copy it? I'm confused now. Who cares if they copyright the design, annotations, citations (dubious!), or database structures?
    - gamblor956 14y ago
      You can copy the text itself, but much of the other stuff, i.e, the formatting, is copyrighted. Also, I'm going to point out that non-lawyers like MacWright usually misunderstand the law (and he has in this instance), so his blog is generally not useful guidance.
      - tmcw 14y ago
        You're right that I'm not a lawyer, but wrong about the rest. Beyond formatting, inclusions of copyrighted text have allowed West to claim copyright over the work - see adjacent comments ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5252150 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5252150 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5252118 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5252118 ) as well as this great article by a real-life lawyer: http://blog.law.cornell.edu/voxpop/2011/07/15/tear-down-this-paywall/ http://blog.law.cornell.edu/voxpop/2011/07/15/tear-down-this...
stcredzero 14y ago
How about an "altruist black-hat" in China scrape the site then post a torrent? This sort of thing has as much a potential for good as it has for mischief. Someone could organize this.
drucken 14y ago
Why is something as basic as the description and distribution of public law not treated the same across all US states? Surely, this is one area where Federal statute must apply... I mean I've heard of "jurisdictional arbitrage" but even for the US, this is starting to be insane when it applies to the actual letters of the law!
- davidp 14y ago
  Because technically[1] the US comprises 50 independent states[2]. Each is free to conduct its affairs freely except for specific powers reserved for the federal government[1]. Today people think of "the United States" as both a singular noun and a singular government, but that's not the formal legal structure. Your point is well taken, though: All laws ought to be open and freely available to the public. Anything else would be Orwellian.[3] [1] If you hold the 10th amendment and its juridical descendants to have meaning. [2] In the 18th-century sense of the word, i.e. a sovereign jurisdiction. [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22 [4] [4] Yes, I know Orwell didn't write Catch-22.
skittles 14y ago
Just scan the books, OCR the scans, and remove the copyrighted information that the publisher added to the codes. You then have a perfectly legal, digital copy. Nobody does this because the codes change over time and there's no way to protect your work. It would be freely available to everyone as soon as the first copy hits an open server. It would also be nearly worthless as soon as the new version comes out (do you want to be the attorney that shows up to court without knowing the new changes?).
- officemonkey 14y ago
  Since passed laws are basically changesets of the existing code, it should be a simple matter of applying patches based on the new laws. In other words, once you digitize the code the first time, any git could update it. http://macwright.org/2013/02/13/the-code-compiled.html http://macwright.org/2013/02/13/the-code-compiled.html
  - kyllo 14y ago
    No pun intended, right? That might actually be a great idea--store all state and federal laws in public Git repos. Each bill introduced to the legislature is a pull request and if they pass it, it gets merged.
    - officemonkey 14y ago
      It would be amazing to read the entire history of the bill, from initial drafting through the congressional conference committee and see who was responsible for every change.
      - kyllo 14y ago
        Exactly. You could 'git blame' the law. Tech is so far ahead of government and industry it's mind-blowing. What is the D.C. Council paying Westlaw for, again? Having version control and a database?
        14y ago
glfomfn 14y ago
I cannot understand how its in public domain and you are not allowed to make a digital copy. Obviously if someone has gone through the process of digitizing, even if its in public domain, they can have a copyright over the specific digital copy. However that doesn't stop you from creating a copy yourself, right ? For sure that's not easily done but still that doesn't mean you are not allowed to do so. Am i missing something ?
themgt 14y ago
Working with the local Code for America group, we've been trying to put a basic budget app online and it's an amazing clusterfuck. The city published incredibly incomplete budget docs in a Google Fusion table, and more detailed documents in images-embedded-in-PDFs. Trying to get access to the underlying information and talking with the city's "chief information officer", turns out the actual budget numbers don't really quite add up due to department moves and program changes and such, so they literally have "a guy" who is entering numbers manually into a Word document based on black magic, to make it all add up. This is the sort of thing where if the tech crowd pushes to get the output data open and accessible, it will be a strong incentive to stop the black magic happening earlier in the process.
DanielBMarkham 14y ago
"...this is not a failure of the Council itself..." I'm calling bullshit. The council should make a law that says all legal code stays in the public domain no matter what. Then a legal case would set up, and then all cities would have resolution on this. There's nobody else but the council. We don't elect lexis-nexis, and council members are the only guys there that represent our interests. Yes, it's certainly fair to say it's a complex issue, and there are good reasons why it's not available, but make no mistake: the council here is the only party responsible.
- mlent 14y ago
  I agree to some extent, the Council did hire West to publish their code, rather than self-publishing. Here in Arizona, the state self-published and as a result, the laws are available online (http://www.azleg.state.az.us/arizonarevisedstatutes.asp http://www.azleg.state.az.us/arizonarevisedstatutes.asp). I'm not sure I know enough to understand why the Council chose West over self-publication.
  - Evbn 14y ago
    I bet you can guess. Hint: $
crappy 14y ago
The individual governments that are in this bind should just TAKE their copyright back by eminent domain. Done.
- mlent 14y ago
  Then they have to pay fair market value for this. Consider how much money that is. West Law's pricing model is a "secret", but it's estimated at $70 per search or $27 per minute. For one person. To buy DC's case law for one attorney, it's a little under $2,000. http://legalsolutions.thomsonreuters.com/law-products/WestlawNext/Essentials-Library--District-of-Columbia-WestlawNext-PRO/p/100013946 http://legalsolutions.thomsonreuters.com/law-products/Westla... I'm guessing the "fair market value" would be INSANE.
  - ghuntley 14y ago
    Westlaw's T&C contains this wonderful gem.... Subscriber Agreement and this Order Form will automatically renew for consecutive 12-month periods ("Renewal Term"), and the Monthly WestlawPRO Charges for the Renewal Term will increase 7% per year unless either party gives written notice of cancellation to the other party at least 30 days in advance of any Renewal Term
doug1001 14y ago
disclaimer: my understanding of the legislative process is based entirely on Schoolhouse Rock's "I'm Just a Bill" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyeJ55o3El0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyeJ55o3El0). so a citizen's access to a particular DC statute is impossible without that citizen infringing a copyright? I wonder if circumstances such as these would constitute "fair use" (which as i understand it is a valid defense to copyright infringement). also, i'm aware that doing things that would otherwise constitute intellectual property infringement, can be justified by the "Essential Facilities" doctrine--originally an Anti-Trust safe harbor, though it's also been applied to IP. This seems to apply here.
ianstallings 14y ago
AFAIK all code books are like this. I've never seen one that is free but I might be wrong.
- tmcw 14y ago
  You are indeed wrong. Most states maintain the code internally and release it in a complete, copyright-free form. Here are a few with nice mirrors: http://www.statedecoded.com/states/ http://www.statedecoded.com/states/
  - ianstallings 14y ago
    Cool thanks for the info! I always thought it was some racket like textbooks.
incision 14y ago
Serious question... If you had direct access to people (DC, not Westlaw) with the power to change this. How would you phrase the argument against the current situation and what would you suggest as an alternative?
- tmcw 14y ago
  DC is interested in changing this and will have the opportunity to do so in a year, when the Lexis contract expires and they can write a new one - or try to bring it in-house.

219 points by cmaggard 14y ago

Bullshit. There is no way the law is subject to copyright. The contractor may claim copyright but I doubt it would standup in court at all.

kylemhill 14y ago
When you live in the District, you get used to a certain level of absurdist federally mandated bullshit.
- darkarmani 14y ago
  It's like getting used to snow, humidity, or traffic in other places (oh, wait you get those too)
jellicle 14y ago
Depends on what you mean by stand up - https://blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/2008/04/16/can-states-copyright-their-statutes/ https://blogs.law.harvard.edu/infolaw/2008/04/16/can-states-... Many states, publishers, and other entities try to claim copyright in parts of the published law: http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/gacode/ http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/gacode/ Some activists have objected: https://public.resource.org/index.html https://public.resource.org/index.html It's an ongoing problem and is not "bullshit" at all.
- fleitz 14y ago
  There's a world of difference between what a lawyer will claim and what a judge will find. The key is fighting back, copy the laws in California, add misdemeanour barratry as a counterclaim as well as SLAPP.
jbronn 14y ago
Although it's absurd, it's been claimed many times before. For example, municipalities incorporate model building codes as law, which publishers objected to being placed online. In 2002 this issue bubbled up to the 5th circuit which held that the laws were not subject to copyright protection. The case is Veeck v. Southern Building Code Congress, 293 F.3d 791: https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/293/293.F3d.791.99-40632.html https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/293/293.F3d.791.99... This is compelling precedent if the copyright dispute ever reaches the federal district court in DC.
- brudgers 14y ago
  I was thinking of Veek as I was reading the article. <IANAL> But my understanding is that model codes can by protected by copyright, but that once they are adopted as law, they cannot be. On the other hand, lack of public access is due to the particular option DC chose - Municode.com has been around for at least twelve years. We used it as the reference for city employees when I worked in city government. http://www.municode.com/Library http://www.municode.com/Library
- mapt 14y ago
  I would argue that if a "law" is not fully in the public domain, it is formally unconstitutionally vague. If the information within is legally a secret, something I cannot acquire without pursuing a commercial arrangement with a private party on a voluntary basis, then the courts cannot reasonably expect me to understand that information, and the legislature has failed to bind me to obey those rules in the eyes of the due process clause of the Constitution. I don't see it as requiring a special prohibition of "copyrighting laws", it stems directly from the fact that 'not public domain' is a variably mitigated example of 'secret'.
tantalor 14y ago
It might be a lot like a cookbook. A recipe (law) cannot be copyrighted, but a book of recipes (laws) can be. http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html
- antiterra 14y ago
  It's almost never that simple. For example, a (regular) telephone book cannot be copyrighted[1] but medical billing codes for insurance can be[2] (so far.) [1] Feist Pubs., Inc. v. Rural Tel. Svc. Co., Inc. - 499 U.S. 340 (1991) http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=499&invol=340 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&#3... [2] Practice Management v AMA - 121 F.3d 516 (9th Cir. 1997) [writ denied by SCOTUS] http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/tfisher/IP/1997%20PMI%20Abridged.pdf http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/tfisher/IP/1997%20PMI%20...
fnordfnordfnord 14y ago
Of course it is bullshit. Here is the latest progress (that I am aware of) on that front. https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/293/293.F3d.791.99-40632.html https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/293/293.F3d.791.99... >>For the reasons discussed above, we REVERSE the district court's judgment against Peter Veeck, and REMAND with instructions to dismiss SBCCI's claims. I'm told that this decision does not make precedent for the whole US, but rather only that which is under the United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. See also: https://law.resource.org/ https://law.resource.org/

dclowd9901 14y ago

This article almost makes me want to create my own automated scanner/ocr just to distribute it in torrent.

joshdick 14y ago
That didn't end up well for the last guy who tried it ...
- rosser 14y ago
  Actually, assuming you're referring to Aaron Swartz, he came out reasonably well from his efforts with PACER, which is a lot more analogous to the situation in TFA than JSTOR.
Avenger42 14y ago
Can't you do that, then file for declaratory judgment that you didn't infringe because the result is (or should be) in the public domain?

axusgrad 14y ago

You can look at the DC Code from links here http://dc.gov/DC/Government/DC+Courts+&+Laws/DC+Laws http://dc.gov/DC/Government/DC+Courts+&+Laws/DC+Laws, but you cannot have it to re-use or republish. The guy posting does a lot with open maps, so he probably wants to reuse the data in more interesting way.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

JackFr 14y ago

I've long felt that novel legal arguments should be considered intellectual property. Once lawyers are forced to pay to cite precedent, the whole landscape will change....

LockeWatts 14y ago
It also widens the already massive gap in the legal defense the poor get versus the legal defense the rich get. Let's not make class warfare easier.
timrogers 14y ago
I'm confused by this comment. What change would you expect? What would the benefit be? (Just interested.)
- joe_the_user 14y ago
  I believe he's hoping the whole legal system would be forced to become less ponderous - sad and not terribly admirable hope. Those people who supported absurdity on the principle that "no one would let such absurdity stand" are a sad footnote in the advance of bureaucratic complexity. The best you can say is they probably haven't done as much damage as the simply greedy.
- joe_the_user 14y ago
  I believe he's hoping the whole legal system would be forced to become less ponderous - sad and not terribly admirable hope. Those people who supported absurdity on the principle that "no one would let such absurdity stand" are a sad footnote in the advance of bureaucratic complexity. The best you can say is they probably haven't done as much damage as the simply greedy.

ludflu 14y ago

as someone who works for TR, this makes me sad.

tantalor 14y ago
TR?
- m0nastic 14y ago
  Thomson Reuters, the parent company of Westlaw (the contractor who presently has the contract in DC)
callahad 14y ago
As a former TR employee, I can empathize. There is immense value in the West Key Number System, editorial headnotes, aggregating everything, and transforming documents into a consistent, uniform representation. Still, it does feel "off" that TR and Lexis have exclusive contracts for digital delivery of codes and case law for so many jurisdictions. The Zotero lawsuit in Sept. 2008 broke a lot of my faith. I stuck around for a further two years trying to change things as best I could, and even managed to reshape TR's open source software policy, but I couldn't resolve the cognitive dissonance around competent legal practice virtually requiring a subscription to Westlaw and/or Lexis Nexis. So, I got out. Ended up way happier. You can get out, too. TR has plenty of brilliant folks--engineers, managers, and executives alike--but it's hard to have organization-scale clarity of purpose and execution when you're dealing with 60,000 people.

thinkcomp 14y ago

Federal laws are not copyrightable per 17 U.S.C. § 105: http://www.plainsite.org/laws/index.html?id=13347 http://www.plainsite.org/laws/index.html?id=13347 I'm not sure if D.C. is considered part of the federal government, but if it is, then there's nothing to worry about in terms of copyright violations.

pilsetnieks 14y ago
I assume that it is not the laws that are copyrighted but this concrete representation of them - the same way, say, Beethoven's 5th symphony is not copyrighted but recordings of its performances are - to the performers, not the composer.
kylemhill 14y ago
It's been its own entity since 1973. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_Home_Rule_Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_Home_Rule_...

throwaway420 14y ago

This is certainly a problem, but I see a larger, more troubling problem here associated with access to the legal code. Yes, what laws exist should be made available in as many formats as possible, including some easily accessible electronic format. I doubt that anybody here would disagree with that. But the real issue here is that there are so many laws and regulations that it becomes impossible for any one human being to know all of them. Any person who goes about their day in a normal fashion breaks multiple laws every day. When the state starts policing moral and ethical behavior rather than merely defending people against aggression, you come up with page after page of laws and it becomes impossible to know what is correct. This culture of "every problem needs a law to solve it" is in my opinion the priority here, not merely making thousands of pages of useless laws somehow more accessible. You're never going to read them anyway.

jrs235 14y ago
The people we have elected to make the laws have steadily moved in the direction that "we the people" on a jury (grand or otherwise) can't determine whether someone has committed a crime or not so everything must be codified so we no longer can determine our own cultural and common law. Perhaps we should focus on writing laws that protect people and allow common sense back into our court rooms? These "protecting" laws would primarily used by appellate courts to throw out "bad" convictions (i.e. ones where race or social class likely were used as motive to convict someone, thus preventing legal injustices such as were committed during the Jim Crow era).
rayiner 14y ago
There has never been a successful society of an serious complexity that had law that could be codified in a form where one person could understand them all. In feudal England prior to the ascension of the common law courts, instead of law you had power: the King (acting through representatives) or lower lords would adjudicate disputes and regulate society. Saying "we have too many laws--nobody can know them all at once" is like saying "Linux has too many lines of code--nobody can understand it all at once." The complexity is unavoidable. You can shift it around, but you can't get rid of it.
- 14y ago

jrs235 14y ago

Aren't statutes and laws merely facts? I thought facts aren't protected by copyright.

timrogers 14y ago
Not sure they can be considered fait accompli necessarily because they are "works". The rule [1] they can't be copyright by virtue of what they are seems more compelling. [1] http://macwright.org/2013/02/14/the-law-is-public-domain.html http://macwright.org/2013/02/14/the-law-is-public-domain.htm...

lignuist 14y ago

Crowdsource a complete transcription and make it public. That should be legal, but I'm not totally sure, since I don't have a copy of the law.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

tantalor 14y ago

You could make your own. Take the bills (which are free) and compile them yourself. Boom, your own copy of the DC Code. You can then release it under a permissive license or whatever. The hard part is compiling the bills. From the blog, Each bill is then downloaded by an employee of the company that wins the contract for maintaining the bill. This person must hold a law degree from an ABA accredited law school, and they cannot be a subcontractor. (http://macwright.org/2013/02/13/the-code-compiled.html http://macwright.org/2013/02/13/the-code-compiled.html) This is why the code can be copyrighted. Like a cookbook which extends a recipe with "substantial literary expression", the code extends the bills with creative expression.

tmcw 14y ago
The action/creativity editing of bills into the law is not a justification for copyright, and it has not been used by West (or any other entity) to claim copyright. West claims copyright on design, annotations, citation, and database structure.
- tantalor 14y ago
  So if they don't claim copyright on the law text itself, why not copy it? I'm confused now. Who cares if they copyright the design, annotations, citations (dubious!), or database structures?
  - gamblor956 14y ago
    You can copy the text itself, but much of the other stuff, i.e, the formatting, is copyrighted. Also, I'm going to point out that non-lawyers like MacWright usually misunderstand the law (and he has in this instance), so his blog is generally not useful guidance.
    - tmcw 14y ago
      You're right that I'm not a lawyer, but wrong about the rest. Beyond formatting, inclusions of copyrighted text have allowed West to claim copyright over the work - see adjacent comments ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5252150 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5252150 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5252118 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5252118 ) as well as this great article by a real-life lawyer: http://blog.law.cornell.edu/voxpop/2011/07/15/tear-down-this-paywall/ http://blog.law.cornell.edu/voxpop/2011/07/15/tear-down-this...

stcredzero 14y ago

How about an "altruist black-hat" in China scrape the site then post a torrent? This sort of thing has as much a potential for good as it has for mischief. Someone could organize this.

drucken 14y ago

Why is something as basic as the description and distribution of public law not treated the same across all US states? Surely, this is one area where Federal statute must apply... I mean I've heard of "jurisdictional arbitrage" but even for the US, this is starting to be insane when it applies to the actual letters of the law!

davidp 14y ago
Because technically[1] the US comprises 50 independent states[2]. Each is free to conduct its affairs freely except for specific powers reserved for the federal government[1]. Today people think of "the United States" as both a singular noun and a singular government, but that's not the formal legal structure. Your point is well taken, though: All laws ought to be open and freely available to the public. Anything else would be Orwellian.[3] [1] If you hold the 10th amendment and its juridical descendants to have meaning. [2] In the 18th-century sense of the word, i.e. a sovereign jurisdiction. [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch-22 [4] [4] Yes, I know Orwell didn't write Catch-22.

skittles 14y ago

Just scan the books, OCR the scans, and remove the copyrighted information that the publisher added to the codes. You then have a perfectly legal, digital copy. Nobody does this because the codes change over time and there's no way to protect your work. It would be freely available to everyone as soon as the first copy hits an open server. It would also be nearly worthless as soon as the new version comes out (do you want to be the attorney that shows up to court without knowing the new changes?).

officemonkey 14y ago
Since passed laws are basically changesets of the existing code, it should be a simple matter of applying patches based on the new laws. In other words, once you digitize the code the first time, any git could update it. http://macwright.org/2013/02/13/the-code-compiled.html http://macwright.org/2013/02/13/the-code-compiled.html
- kyllo 14y ago
  No pun intended, right? That might actually be a great idea--store all state and federal laws in public Git repos. Each bill introduced to the legislature is a pull request and if they pass it, it gets merged.
  - officemonkey 14y ago
    It would be amazing to read the entire history of the bill, from initial drafting through the congressional conference committee and see who was responsible for every change.
    - kyllo 14y ago
      Exactly. You could 'git blame' the law. Tech is so far ahead of government and industry it's mind-blowing. What is the D.C. Council paying Westlaw for, again? Having version control and a database?
      - 14y ago

glfomfn 14y ago

I cannot understand how its in public domain and you are not allowed to make a digital copy. Obviously if someone has gone through the process of digitizing, even if its in public domain, they can have a copyright over the specific digital copy. However that doesn't stop you from creating a copy yourself, right ? For sure that's not easily done but still that doesn't mean you are not allowed to do so. Am i missing something ?

themgt 14y ago

Working with the local Code for America group, we've been trying to put a basic budget app online and it's an amazing clusterfuck. The city published incredibly incomplete budget docs in a Google Fusion table, and more detailed documents in images-embedded-in-PDFs. Trying to get access to the underlying information and talking with the city's "chief information officer", turns out the actual budget numbers don't really quite add up due to department moves and program changes and such, so they literally have "a guy" who is entering numbers manually into a Word document based on black magic, to make it all add up. This is the sort of thing where if the tech crowd pushes to get the output data open and accessible, it will be a strong incentive to stop the black magic happening earlier in the process.

DanielBMarkham 14y ago

"...this is not a failure of the Council itself..." I'm calling bullshit. The council should make a law that says all legal code stays in the public domain no matter what. Then a legal case would set up, and then all cities would have resolution on this. There's nobody else but the council. We don't elect lexis-nexis, and council members are the only guys there that represent our interests. Yes, it's certainly fair to say it's a complex issue, and there are good reasons why it's not available, but make no mistake: the council here is the only party responsible.

mlent 14y ago
I agree to some extent, the Council did hire West to publish their code, rather than self-publishing. Here in Arizona, the state self-published and as a result, the laws are available online (http://www.azleg.state.az.us/arizonarevisedstatutes.asp http://www.azleg.state.az.us/arizonarevisedstatutes.asp). I'm not sure I know enough to understand why the Council chose West over self-publication.
- Evbn 14y ago
  I bet you can guess. Hint: $

crappy 14y ago

The individual governments that are in this bind should just TAKE their copyright back by eminent domain. Done.

mlent 14y ago
Then they have to pay fair market value for this. Consider how much money that is. West Law's pricing model is a "secret", but it's estimated at $70 per search or $27 per minute. For one person. To buy DC's case law for one attorney, it's a little under $2,000. http://legalsolutions.thomsonreuters.com/law-products/WestlawNext/Essentials-Library--District-of-Columbia-WestlawNext-PRO/p/100013946 http://legalsolutions.thomsonreuters.com/law-products/Westla... I'm guessing the "fair market value" would be INSANE.
- ghuntley 14y ago
  Westlaw's T&C contains this wonderful gem.... Subscriber Agreement and this Order Form will automatically renew for consecutive 12-month periods ("Renewal Term"), and the Monthly WestlawPRO Charges for the Renewal Term will increase 7% per year unless either party gives written notice of cancellation to the other party at least 30 days in advance of any Renewal Term

doug1001 14y ago

disclaimer: my understanding of the legislative process is based entirely on Schoolhouse Rock's "I'm Just a Bill" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyeJ55o3El0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyeJ55o3El0). so a citizen's access to a particular DC statute is impossible without that citizen infringing a copyright? I wonder if circumstances such as these would constitute "fair use" (which as i understand it is a valid defense to copyright infringement). also, i'm aware that doing things that would otherwise constitute intellectual property infringement, can be justified by the "Essential Facilities" doctrine--originally an Anti-Trust safe harbor, though it's also been applied to IP. This seems to apply here.

ianstallings 14y ago

AFAIK all code books are like this. I've never seen one that is free but I might be wrong.

tmcw 14y ago
You are indeed wrong. Most states maintain the code internally and release it in a complete, copyright-free form. Here are a few with nice mirrors: http://www.statedecoded.com/states/ http://www.statedecoded.com/states/
- ianstallings 14y ago
  Cool thanks for the info! I always thought it was some racket like textbooks.

incision 14y ago

Serious question... If you had direct access to people (DC, not Westlaw) with the power to change this. How would you phrase the argument against the current situation and what would you suggest as an alternative?

tmcw 14y ago
DC is interested in changing this and will have the opportunity to do so in a year, when the Lexis contract expires and they can write a new one - or try to bring it in-house.