Don't Share That Law! It's Copyrighted

Nathan Halverson writes "California claims copyright to its laws, and warns people not to share them. And that's not sitting right with Internet gadfly, and open-access hero, Carl Malamud. He has spent the last couple months scanning tens of thousands of pages containing city, county and state laws — think building codes, banking laws, etc. Malamud wants California to sue him, which is almost a given if the state wants to continue claiming copyright. He thinks a federal court will rule in his favor: It is illegal to copyright the law since people are required to know it. Malamud helped force the SEC to put corporate filings online in 1994, and did the same with the patent office. He got the Smithsonian to loosen its claim of copyright, CSPAN to stop forbidding people from sharing its videos, and most recently Oregon to quit claiming copyright on state laws." Malamud's talk at Google ("All the Government's Information") is also well worth watching.

Playing With Fire

[PawNtheSandman]

I wouldn't keep prodding Arnold like that.

Re:California Strikes Again

[d34thm0nk3y]

Maybe if we all pirate these laws it will reduce the financial incentive of these "artists" to create new works.

Profit

[ZeroFactorial]

1) Copyright state laws for states that haven't copyrighted their own laws yet.
2) Copyright California Bills before they're passed into law (since they're only copyrighting their LAWS.
2) Sue.
4) Profit!


No ??? step?!? Something is seriously wrong here!
That something must be that copyrighting laws is the stupidest idea that's ever been conceived.

Re:Profit

[ZeroFactorial]

That something is also that there is no step 3...

We understand

[davidwr]

Webster copyrighted "ridiculous" and you didn't have the money to pay for a license, so you created your own word.

The purpose of copyright is to encourage creativity. See, it works!

Lock him up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Carl Malamud is aiding the terrists! If the laws are freely available to be known by the public, the terrists will find out and obey them to avoid being caught!

The Governator

[Finallyjoined!!!]

Yep, I can just hear him saying "don't prod me!"

Heh.

Re:Can you copyright a copyright law?

[Spy der Mann]

Can you copyright a copyright law?

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE! You've opened a universe paradox! WE'RE GONNA DIEEeeeeeeeeee

Re:California Strikes Again

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, ever since america replaced bill (getting his dick sucked) with George (who's sticking his dick up the ass of america), we've all been getting F*ed.

Re:California Strikes Again

[Thelasko]

The joke's on them! I trademarked the name "California" back in 1849. They have been using it without my permission ever since. My settlement is going to be HUGE!

Marshall and Sutter [wikipedia.org] called me a fool back then. They told me the real money was in digging for gold. Who's laughing now!

Streisand Effect in 3...2...1...

[Scarletdown]

So then, how long before people start posting assorted CA laws all over the Internet? I'd start by posting the one about a $500 fine for detonating a nuke inside the Chico, CA city limits. But I can't verify whether or not that is a real law or an urban legend.

Re:They can't possibly charge him...

[Malevolyn]

Kal-ee-forn-ee-uh

I think you mean GAL-ee-forn-ee-uh.

Re:California Strikes Again

[ZeroFactorial]

We should copyright the copyright laws with billion dollar royalties for usage.

You could violate any copyrights you want, and when they try to cite the copyright laws, BAM!

Re:California Strikes Again

[HardCase]

Uh oh, looks like Spain might have beat you to the punch... [wikipedia.org]

Nothing for it but to head to court!

Re:Not illegal

[moderatorrater]

Copyrights on laws may be unenforceable but they are not illegal.

I sure am glad you popped up to split that hair. Without comments like this, where would we be?

Re:California Strikes Again

[nospam007]

>Exactly. How do the creators of this portion of the law think their laws are not public domain?

Like the rest of them, I guess they want to sell you an expensive licensed copy they produce themselves.

Re:California Strikes Again

[Torvaun]

Your post made me think two things.
1) Don't corporations own most of our laws?
2) How awesome would it be if all laws were required to be in the form of a limerick?

Re:California Strikes Again

[memfrob]

"I'm sorry, your honor, I didn't have enough money to know what laws I broke.

"It is illegal to be poor. Off to the spice mines with you!"

*shudder*

Re:California Strikes Again

[techno-vampire]

I see. Is there any reason, then, when you copy/paste your comments into your browser (after the story goes live) that you can't look to see if anything's been marked as misspelled? For that matter, what ever happened to poorfraeding your posts yourself and correcting any speeling misteaks?

Re:The Governator

[sm62704]

Come with me if you want to live.

Re:California Strikes Again

[Actually, I do RTFA]

2) How awesome would it be if all laws were required to be in the form of a limerick?

It could be cool:

The act of ending a life
When aggrevated by previous strife
Or in the course of a crime
Shall result in a time
Spent as a large convict's wife.

Re:California Strikes Again

[Narpak]

The people must have access to laws in order to obey them.

Communist! Laws should be kept secret so that terrorists can't abuse them. Whenever someone is arrested they should have to prove that what they did is not illegal; if they can't afford to buy official Law Books they are obviously parasites expecting to get something for free.

Ignorance is Freedom!

Re:California Strikes Again

[erroneus]

Actually, no... it's the name of the procedure they used to fix John Wayne Bobbit.

Re:I say let them copyright it

[izomiac]

IMHO we should go back to publicly displaying the entire legal code on a monument. In theory it'd encourage lawmakers to make the law concise and understandable. I highly doubt that would happen in practice, but at least we would have a space elevator.

Re:I say let them copyright it

[stubob]

In a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory behind a door that said "Beware of the tiger"

Easy to fix that one.

[Anonymous Coward]

This does bring up the sticky issue of the browser cache, of course... If it's on the hard disk, then it is affixed...

Easy to fix that problem: Browsers have now just been officially declared to be copyright circumvention devices. Use or possession thereof is a felony. The gubmint will now throw you into prison for the rest of your life and seize all your assets and possessions.

Re:The recurring theme with copyright violation:

[atraintocry]

Creating these trade groups around standards and charging for access to the information is sick enough. Lobbying the government to turn it into law is even sicker. But c'mon...do they really need to profit off of both at once? That's like strip mining...with babies.

Ninja Law

[jameskojiro]

Just like on Naruto when a hidden village creates a new ninja technique or jitsu they seal it away in a scroll and hide it somewhere. Then when people try to take it they send their shinobi and the the anbu black ops after them and they can kill the crap out of people who try to copy their stuff.

Replace:

"Naruto" with "Real Life".

"Hidden village" with "artist"

"Ninja Technique or jitsu" with "song or film"

"seal it away in a scroll and hide it somewhere" with "press a cd or dvd and sell it."

"when when people try to take it" with "you rip the CD/DVD and copy it to your hard drive."

"Shinobi and the the ANBU black ops" with "Lawyers and MPAA/RIAA goons."

"Kill" with "sue".

Now all you Narutards out there can understand what is being said.

So, in court press "I Disagree" and walk?

[jbezorg]

If the law is protected by copyright and I disagree with the terms of the copyright, what then?

Re:California Strikes Again

[vivin]

That's because Chrome is built on top of vi.

In vi :% makes you select the entire range of text, so this obviously means that you are trying to select TEH ENTIRE INTARWEB!!!111

So Chrome runs out of memory and crashes.

Re:California Strikes Again

[Anonymous Coward]

Not at all. The difference in emacs is that, rather than using %, you have to press Left Ctrl + Right Shift + Spacebar + F3 + PgDown + G + PrtScn