City Laws Only Available Via $200 License 411
MrLint writes "The City of Schenectady has decided that their laws are copyrighted, and that you cannot know them without paying for an 'exclusive license' for $200. This is not a first — Oregon has claimed publishing of laws online is a copyright violation." This case is nuanced. The city has contracted with a private company to convert and encode its laws so they can be made available on the Web for free. While the company works on this project, it considers the electronic versions of the laws its property and offers a CD version, bundled with its software, for $200. The man who requested a copy of the laws plans to appeal.
New form of taxes! (Score:5, Insightful)
WE THE PEOPLE..... (Score:3, Insightful)
..no longer own our government. Time for that city's citizens to fire all the politicians (hopefully peacefully not by force), and rebuild the government from scratch
What exactly is nuanced? (Score:5, Insightful)
A simple solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Any law which does not offer universal access to those claimed to be subject to it should not have universal jurisdiction over said population. A very simple quid pro quo. If you have to pay to know the law, it only can be applied to those who paid :).
My builder doesn't own my house (Score:3, Insightful)
Do people on a jury have to pay $200 as well? (Score:4, Insightful)
Do people on a jury have to pay $200 as well? As it can be real hard to be on a jury and not know the law.
Re:WE THE PEOPLE..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Lets hope for just a little force. Scare the rest of them back in line.
Summary (Score:5, Insightful)
TFA reports that the code is available in multiple public locations. The citizen can make copies of the ordinances from those sources.
That the city code is a twisted mess is no big surprise. A lot of municipalities have that problem.
The assertion of copyright is stupid, just stupid. The morons will soon realize that they have to retreat from that lunatic undemocratic position or they will be sued under New York's FOIA.
Re:Not the first time this has come up (Score:3, Insightful)
First off, since these are state and local laws, the objection that "government works are in the public domain" doesn't apply, as that objection is only valid for federal works.
I don't know where people get the idea that "the government" equals only the Federal government. Your state and city have governments, too.
I hear it all the time in the bar I go to when people bitch about "the government", blaming Obama and Durbin etc for stupid state laws and city ordinances that the feds don't have anything to do with. The smoking ban comes to mind, boy that one pissed off the bar owners here!
You have more than one government. Where I live I have a Federal governmant, a state govenment, a county government, and a city government. Luckily here the county laws usually don't apply in the city. And there's more than one city in the city and there are no markers showing where Springfield ends and Grandview or Jerome begins.
Re:New form of taxes! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Outrageous (Score:1, Insightful)
"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against-then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
- one of the bad guys from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged
Welcome to government (Score:2, Insightful)
Welcome to government, where you don't have to be responsible for your own mistakes, because you make the rules.
The judge sounds like an idiot, and probably is. Does he realize what kind of funding the state's DMV would need if every state resident took him seriously, and contacted the DMV four or more times a year to make sure his/her license hasn't been suspended and to check that they don't have any outstanding tickets? And how much economic damage that might cause the state because of lost work?
Re:Outrageous (Score:5, Insightful)
Even in a hypothetical libertarian utopia where the state handles nothing but defense and the bare outlines of criminal law, you are going to end up with some very lengthy laws, either directly or by reference. For instance, "due process" is pithy; but what it actually means, once you get to the level of court procedure, access to lawyers, details of how one can/cannot be detained and under what circumstances, etc, etc. would be hard to encapsulate in under book length. You could keep the law code itself short by simply refusing to go into detail and handwaving, or by referring to outside codes of practice; but that doesn't really help. If you do the first, you don't really have a rule of law at all. If you do the second, you simply have a very long code of laws that is split up among numerous documents, with your actual "law code" serving as little more than an index.
Once you get into the realm of things like building codes, which are necessarily pretty technical, this problem just becomes greater.
This is not to say that complexity is good(it isn't, one should always strive for Einstein's "simple as possible; but no simpler"); but it does mean that you have to be careful to distinguish between unnecessary and invidious complexity, and necessary complexity. It's like the use of technical jargon. People complain, often rightly, that it is used to confuse and intimidate laymen and keep them from questioning experts; but there are plenty of things that are simply complex and cannot be usefully simplified without distortion.
Re:WE THE PEOPLE..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:New form of taxes! (Score:3, Insightful)
You could have easily appealed that. There is a huge difference between ignorance of the law, and being psychic and knowing they had tried to notify you.
When you sent the ticket in, with your correct address, you met your obligations with regards to that ticket. It is up to the courts and police to notify you at the correct address. No reasonable judge or court system could expect an individual who never received notification, because the courts sent the information to the incorrect address to realize they had a suspended license (or for any other legal matter).
I was also charged with driving on a suspended license in VA, and I made a deal with the prosecutor prior to ever seeing the judge, and I also had no idea that my license was suspended. The difference is, they did notify me at the correct address, however at some point VA stopped using certified mail that require an signature of receipt when sending out suspension notices, and started using normal mail, I just had not gotten around to opening it.
Re:Do people on a jury have to pay $200 as well? (Score:2, Insightful)
Stop reading TFA (Score:1, Insightful)
As I was reading TFA there was another thing I saw that outraiged me besides the ludicrous copyrighting of laws.
Problem solved!
Re:New form of taxes! (Score:3, Insightful)
Lots of laws (Score:3, Insightful)
Why so many codes and regulations?
The short answer is that the society we live in is very complicated. The basic principles are pretty simple but hammering out the details requires a lot of lawmaking. These laws cover the corner cases of how we are to interact with each other. Turns out the best (and probably only) way to do that anyone has come up with is to have a lot of laws. This is better than the alternative which is basically monarchy. Better to have the rules spelled out (even if complicated) than to depend on the capricious whims of rules. (yes, yes, I know it's hard to tell the difference sometimes...)
Bear in mind too that those laws are just the regulations, codes, ordinances etc passed by legislative bodies. There is another set of relevant law found in case law [wikipedia.org].
How the hell is anyone supposed to avoid being a criminal when there are books and books of laws one has to obey?
You aren't. A government that cannot accuse you of breaking any laws cannot control you.
Re:A simple solution (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:New form of taxes! (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, bucko, but that's exactly how the American Justice System is NOT supposed to work. Sure, the innocent still get convicted wrongly, but it's not a necessary function of the system. It's a glitch in the system, one that we strive to eliminate. And before you turn this into a false dilemma, we also want to eliminate the converse glitch: guilty people walking on technicalities. It's a balancing act with no clear proportions, though we (should) tend slightly toward preserving the innocent.
Re:WE THE PEOPLE..... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Time for that city's citizens to fire all the politicians (hopefully peacefully not by force), and rebuild the government from scratch"
Fuck it. Kill em all and burn their children.
The Revolutionary War never ended... We're still fighting the same problem.
Re:New form of taxes! (Score:5, Insightful)
Most countries have more laws than people can remember. It's a natural progression of law codified in specific legal language, combined with capitalism that lets market forces get in the pockets of politicians and get specific alterations or amendments made for their benefit.
Your example about the number of people we have in prison isn't related to this topic. A large number of them are in prison for non-violent drug offenses-something they knew was illegal. I don't believe our war on drugs is really about drugs, it's about making minorities criminals.
I do agree though, we have far too many laws. Those laws that should exist often are far too long. If I wanted a paper copy of all the laws that apply to me, meaning township, county, state and federal law, it would fill my entire house to the top. That is insane.
ignorance of the law (Score:3, Insightful)
In my experience the "ignorance of the law is no excuse" standpoint holds up whether or not you have a good excuse for your ignorance. The police once copied down my address incorrectly on a ticket (they ignored my correct address on the copy of the ticket I mailed in) causing a summons to court, a notice of default judgement against me, a notice that my ticket was unpaid and a notice that my license had been suspended to be sent to the wrong address. I was later charged with driving with a suspended license after an accident a few months later. I discovered what had happened after some digging at the bureau of public records. I explained what had happened to the judge and he told me the ignorance of the law is ones own fault period. The fact that the state had tried to contact me was sufficient on their part. It is always your responsibility to become informed of the law regardless of any difficulties you have.
Though it sounds like you were treated unfairly, this is not a true example of the "ignorance of the law" principle in operation. (As a side note, the IRS lost a similar case a few years ago. The court did not buy the argument that they had informed the citizen by sending notices to the wrong address.)
Despite what know-it-alls say, the "ignorance of the law" principle is not absolute. It is a compromise which favors the state against the citizen. In most cases the citizen is assumed to know about any law which has been properly published. Without it, those who wanted to break the law would deliberately avoid learning about it. With it, citizens can be victimized when they are punished for violating laws about which they might not have known. This is considered a necessary trade-off in order to preserve the state's ability to punish the truly guilty.
There is controversy about when ignorance of the law becomes an excluse. The state's case is strongest when the citizen is engaged in an activity which is far outside the scope of what normal people do, such as if he is operating a nuclear power plant. It is expected that he will know that special laws will apply and will perform the necessary research.
Factors which weaken the government's case: the citizen is engaged in an ordinary activity, the law is new, the citizen can show that he made a good faith effort to learn about the law (especially if a government official mis-informed him), access to the text of the law is obstructed.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/11/13/1310212/City-Laws-Only-Available-Via-200-License?art_pos=1# [slashdot.org]
If I am operating a nuclear power plant, it is reasonable for me to pay $200 for access to the thousands of pages of laws and regulations involved. If I am planting a shrub in my front yard, it is not reasonable to pay $200 for a copy of the city ordinances on CD. At a time when electronic publication is replacing display in public buildings, it is reasonable to ask whether artificial barriers to access, such as high fees, impair the right of cities to enforce their laws.
Re:Appeal (Score:3, Insightful)
"There's no point in acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you've had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaints and it's far too late to start making a fuss about it now."
Guess we should have regularly checked with city hall...
Re:New form of taxes! (Score:3, Insightful)
Seek.
Legal.
Advice.
Re:New form of taxes! (Score:3, Insightful)
I would venture to guess that any and all solutions would involve eating into the profits of those who fund the politicians the most. This, of course, is unacceptable.
The first thing that should be done is to prevent any company from being considered as a "person." After that, a lot of things would change. But there are still other problems such as the fact that wages earned are not "income" and yet are still being taxed as if they were. Meanwhile, big business has their taxable income protected in shelters, off-shore accounts, out-of-state operations and other tricks.
The nation is completely corrupted by business interests and no longer serves the interests of the people. Historically, there has been only one resolution to that problem. I find that method of resolution distasteful but it is hard to imagine anyone currently benefiting from the way things are giving up their power and benefits so easily.
Re:WE THE PEOPLE..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, you can also stop the progression, coming to a happy medium somewhere between oligarchy and democracy, if you wield Magna Carta +1. If you do it right, you end up with a system that can remain stable for long periods of time... the longest on record is presently approaching the 800-year mark, and there are multiple other examples in the world of stable and open democracies that function under this system, as well as similar systems.
A Monarchy isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as there are constitutional limits on the power that the monarch wields. Having a head of state who answers to the people, but remains in power for longer periods of time and doesn't have to worry about reelection means that they can make a more even, level-headed approach to things that might not necessarily be popular now, but that is better for the nation as a whole in the long run. Incidentally, that's why senate appointments in the UK and Canada are for life: to provide a sober second thought.
Re:New form of taxes! (Score:2, Insightful)
Guilty people walking on technicalities is exactly what we want. Those technicalities also protect us. We can't really have it both ways, because any system will be flawed... so I think the theory is its better to let a guilty person go than send an innocent man to prision.
Re:New form of taxes! (Score:1, Insightful)
I don't believe our war on drugs is really about drugs, it's about making minorities criminals.
Doesn't that presuppose that "minorities" are mostly drug users/dealers? So am I racist if I agree with you or racist if I don't?
Re:New form of taxes! (Score:4, Insightful)
This has been going on for a long, long, long time. Here's Mr Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, to describe it for us:
Nothing -- absolutely nothing -- has changed since Clemens' time, well over one hundred years later.
Here's an example. In 2005 my insurance lapsed for a day because I forgot to pay or something. I don't know, it was years ago. Anyway, in Georgia, apparently the state gets notified when this happens, and suspends your tag. Not your license, mind you -- your tag. I had no idea this happened, they just did it. For the next several years I went about my business, including getting my tag updated annually, and even being pulled over a few times, with nary a word about this from any of the tag office clerks, police, or anyone else.
Finally, one cop noticed, pulled me over, and arrested me for driving on the suspended tag. I went to jail because of this.
The judge decided it was my fault and blah blah blah ignorance is no excuse yadda yadda. The truth is, I had been dutifully updating my tag every year as required, which should say something about my intent to fully comply with the law, and I'd think that any rational person would see that no offense was meant and no harm was done, so send me on my way. But no.
That's how the justice system works. The laws are so numerous, so convoluted, and updated and modified so frequently, that we as a society freely acknowledge that the average person has no way of understanding it, which is why we have specialty occupations like lawyers. But we expect the average person to comply with all these laws he can't understand, too.
It really doesn't matter that the laws are theoretically available for anyone to read. No mortal human has time for that. Even lawyers tend to specialise in one specific area of law, and when asked about some other area, will give you mostly blank looks.
To an extent, I think ignorance of the law is a fine excuse. Clearly there are certain things that are known to be illegal across the vast majority of the populace, but there are way too many people being prosecuted and going through immense legal hassle over minor violations of obscure laws nobody knows or cares about except the state when they need some excuse to extort more money from the citizenry.
naunced? BS (Score:3, Insightful)
This case is NOT nuanced. Only the lawyers for the company that stands to make a buck want folks to think that. Did the printing company that, in olden days, typeset, print, and bind the laws in paper copies expect to profit from an exclusive license? No, they expected to get paid to do the printing and hand over the copies to the government. Possibly they could print up additional copies and sell them but they didn't expect to have any rights to the content.
Re:New form of taxes! (Score:2, Insightful)
The guilty know they are guilty and the ones that walk on technicalities do so because they plan for the eventuality, or pay someone to.
But we don't KNOW they are guilty. And evidence which may lead to one person being guilty may be misleading, because we don't have all of the facts. Most people commiting crimes though aren't planning as far ahead as you think, and even when they do we still manage to catch and convict them. The technicalities that you refer to are things like searches without a warrant, illegal wiretaps, etc. As I said, they are their for OUR protection against a tyrant state.
The innocent don't have the luxury of planning in advance to beat the wrap for a crime they didn't commit. So the system is broken both in that the guilty walk, and that the innocent do not.
The innocent go to jail because juries decide guilt on nothing but circumstatial evidence, or they were railroaded by those in power, not because innocent people can't plan ahead.
Even guilty people don't think they're going to get caught; if they did, they'd not commit the crime to begin with. Therefore, they don't plan on a defense, because they don't think they're going to get caught anyway.
Re:New form of taxes! (Score:4, Insightful)
Ayn Rand - ""There's no way to rule innocent men.
The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals.
Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them.
One declares so many things to be a crime
that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws." "
Re:New form of taxes! (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, but not only do I NOT think that the real statistics support that claim, it also constitutes exactly the kind of profiling that is being discussed here. Like racism, profiling is profiling, no matter which way it points.
Try again.
Re:Do people on a jury have to pay $200 as well? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, that's what they tell you in jury duty, but it's patently false. The jury's most important job is to judge the law.
The US Supreme Court has held over and over again that the jury is the innocent man's last defence against bad laws, and that jury nullification is a right and necessary function in a free society.
FIJA [fija.org] will have all the materials you need to verify.
I was prevented from serving on a jury when I told the Judge I could not follow the instructions he outlined because they violated the State and US Constitutions and cited the relevant cases. Another strategy is to lie (ascent) and then be a good juror, but the system is set up to keep people who understand their responsibilities as a juror off the jury.
Building Codes (Score:3, Insightful)