As a matter of principle, in the US at least, laws to which you are bound are supposed to be freely-as-in-freedom available. That doesn't mean they invariably a

As a matter of principle, in the US at least, laws to which you are bound are supposed to be freely-as-in-freedom available. That doesn't mean they invariably are, though; people find various ways to extract rent from the law.[1] Usually the law as enacted by the legislature / ruled by the courts is free, but they might incorporate by reference some non-free rules developed and maintained by commercial entities. These are things like building codes, fire codes, and so on, which might cost thousands of dollars for a copy and not be redistributable. [2] The recentish example (2002) is Veeck vs. SBCCI[3]. [1] 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-... [2] http://simplesupports.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/building-codes-and-copyright/ http://simplesupports.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/building-code... [3] http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Veeck_v._Southern_Building_Code_Congress_Int%27l,_Inc./Opinion_of_the_Court#I._The_Supreme_Court.E2.80.99s_View http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Veeck_v._Southern_Building_Cod...