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The Courts Government News Your Rights Online

Open Source Law 287

Posted by michael from the free-as-air dept.
Russ Nelson writes "The U.S. Supreme Court just announced its refusal to review the 5th Circuit's en banc decision that there can be no copyright of privately authored laws offered to U.S. governmental bodies for adoption. The model law itself may be copyrighted, but once it's adopted, the law must be open source. The entire case is laid out on Peter Veeck's page." Slashdot touched on this before, but never really covered this dispute in depth. Here's a nice legal summary of the case.
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Open Source Law

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  • Here's an interesting quote (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tkrotchko ( 124118 ) * on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @05:13PM (#6395941) Homepage
    "The Primary Purpose of Copyright Law is not to Provide a Benefit to Authors, But to Provide the Public With Access to Authors' Works."

    Fascinating, isn't it?
    • Where is that quote from? I couldn't find it in the links...

    • Re:Here's an interesting quote (Score:5, Interesting)

      by gerf ( 532474 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @05:17PM (#6395981) Journal

      "The Primary Purpose of Copyright Law is not to Provide a Benefit to Authors, But to Provide the Public With Access to Authors' Works."

      Fascinating, isn't it?

      More than fascinating... anyone who follows yro.slashdot or any copywright laws could pull some very helpful court decisions from this one statement alone. Heck, it sort of infers that P2P is legal, especially with copywrighted works. Obviously, that wouldn't stand up in another case, but it's very interesting nevertheless.

      • "The Primary Purpose of Copyright Law is not to Provide a Benefit to Authors, But to Provide the Public With Access to Authors' Works."

        anyone who follows yro.slashdot or any copywright laws could pull some very helpful court decisions from this one statement alone. Heck, it sort of [implies] that P2P is legal, especially with copywrighted works.

        I didn't see this quote in the decision or the analysis, but if I'm to assume it's there then I also would assume that the argument runs in the vein of decidi

      • I think you mean 'imply'.

        Speakers imply, listeners infer. -- Dct. Robert Goran, Major Crime Squad :)
      • it sort of infers that P2P is legal, especially with copywrighted works. Obviously, that wouldn't stand up in another case, but it's very interesting nevertheless.

        I don't see where you got this from. Basically a company creates a work, gets it published into law that you and I has to follow, and then says, you must pay us to be able to know what the law is so you can follow it. If you want to create a law, and have any ability to enforce it, I would hope that people can be allowed to see what the law sa

      • Re:Here's an interesting quote (Score:4, Insightful)

        by flacco ( 324089 ) on Wednesday July 09, 2003 @12:14AM (#6398221)
        Heck, it sort of infers that P2P is legal, especially with copywrighted works.

        No, it doesn't. Copyright provides public access to authors' works precisely by protecting it, much in the same way that patents are supposed to protect inventions (despite the patent system being hopelessly broken and ransacked by large corporate interests).

        It permits authors to publish stuff - i.e., make it public - without fear of being ripped off.

    • Not really, it's just amazing (or not) that major companies can impose their ways on the American public (and government, for that matter) through sheer ignorance.
    • What is even more interesting is the implications of a copyrighted law...

      what would that mean exactly? that every time someone made a public address that cited the law, that they would have to pay royalties to the writer?

      Lawyers would have to pay royalties to practice certain kinds of law?

      I could just imagine "we dont defend against this firm, because they paid 300 thousand to actually be told what the law is, we cannot therefor know that law since we did not pay the legal royalties on it."

      That leaves m
      • what would that mean exactly? that every time someone made a public address that cited the law, that they would have to pay royalties to the writer?

        You mean just like how you have to pay royalties for all the copyrighted works you cite in a paper?

      • Re:Here's an interesting quote (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Thorsett ( 5255 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @05:43PM (#6396160) Homepage
        (I posted this story a week ago and it was rejected.)

        I'm surprised that copyrighted laws are news to so many people. I've been frustrated for years that while you can look up almost all of our local munciple code on line, the building code sections are not published, because they incorporate by reference material copyrighted by the standards organizations. Check your own local code websites and I bet you'll find the same thing.

        This odd situation isn't new; this has been standard practice for years. But nobody really noticed until we came to expect instant internet access to government information, since all local governments have copies of the copyrighted building codes available for inspection in the office.

        There are some interesting implications of this ruling for software; for example, if a government agency requires software to interoperate with a proprietary standard (e.g., Word document format)....

        • True Open Law (Score:5, Insightful)

          by The Monster ( 227884 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @07:48PM (#6396852) Homepage
          But nobody really noticed until we came to expect instant internet access to government information, since all local governments have copies of the copyrighted building codes available for inspection in the office.
          Long before I heard of the Internet, I thought this was suspect. I don't know how it is in other states, but in KS the only reason a lot of county newspapers stay in business is because of a state law that requires publication of certain legal documents, including every new local ordinance, in the 'official county newspaper'.

          When dealing with such a complex subject as building codes, having the county/city buy a few copies for the courthouse/city hall and a few more for each library, and 'incorporating by reference' made some kind of sense. But now we have the technology to communicate law for virtually zero transaction cost, so I propose this simple idea for governments to consider enacting if they want to open up the whole business of law to make it accessible to the citizenry:

          Every
          proposed law (bill/resolution/etc), when first introduced by a member of the legislative body, must be submitted in a well-defined markup language - I'm thinking XHTML - to show the exact text of the proposal and track any amendments as they are attached using span classes that show every jot and tittle that's altered, when, by what vote... When the law is passed, the document is cryptographically signed by the presiding officer of the legislative body - when the executive has the power to approve or veto with a pen and ink, he also applies an electronic signature to the bill

          And the entire base of existing law must be transcribed into such a format within 5 years. Then do the same with administrative regulations promugated by agencies, with hyperlinks back to the law that gave them the power to promulgate. And all the judicial decisions. . .

          Making the law open to the people electronically will be far cheaper and effective than doing it by just printing fat books that sit in law libraries.
      • what would that mean exactly?

        Well, it basically means that you can't go around making copies of the law itself. If you need a copy, you will have to order it from someone who is authorised to make copies, and you will presumably have to pay for it.

        Traditionally, this has been the case for large codes such as building codes or electrical codes. These are law, and you can go down to your local branch of government (city hall, legislature, etc) and read the copy they have there, but you can't photocopy the

    • Re:Here's another interesting quote (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Frymaster ( 171343 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @06:09PM (#6396318) Homepage Journal
      ""Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives. A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both."
      - James Madison (Fourth President of the United States)

      while making sure laws remain open is a good and necessary thing to maintain a transparent state with de jure authority, it only goes so far. if the laws are open but the interests, motivations and business dealings of lawmakers remain opaque then the openess is not complete.

      mit (yep, the massachussets institute of technology) has been running a site for a while now dedicated to allowing citizens to monitor and research their legislators (and executives). the mission statement says it all:

      To empower citizens by providing a single, comprehensive, easy-to-use repository of information on individuals, organizations, and corporations related to the government of the United States of America.

      To allow citizens to submit intelligence about government-related issues, while maintaining their anonymity. To allow members of the government a chance to participate in the process.

      the full site is at: http://opengov.media.mit.edu/ [mit.edu]

      it's a good read.

  • In other news. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @05:14PM (#6395949)
    Freakin common sense strikes court system. Film at 11:00

  • I'm using the latest milestone of Firebird, and the entire article rendered about an inch wide, with several inches of whitespace on the sides. Anyone else get it this way?

    http://www.gtwassociates.com/answers/veeck.htm [gtwassociates.com]
    • Whoever wrote that page is an idiot, first off the use tables for formatting (ugh), then they set the left and right columns to 720 pixels each absolute values rather than %ages. IE aparantly just ignores the width declaration and renders it how it wishes.

    • lame text fixed here (Score:3, Informative)

      by donutz ( 195717 )
      whatever lameness they used to code that page has been eliminated here:

      In the Supreme Court of the United States
      Southern Building Code Congress International, Inc, Petitioner
      v.
      Peter Veeck, D/B/A Regional Web

      No. 02-355

      Update June 3065, 2003

      Summary

      On June 27 the Supreme Supreme Court decided not to hear an appeal of the Fifth Circuit court June 7, 2002 decision in Veeck vs. SBCCI No. 99-40632 that when a copyrighted standard or code is referenced into law (particularly if it thereby becomes "the law
    • Good afternoon,
      I am writing to inform you the web page listed in the subject line is completely illegible unless using Internet Explorer, as the text of the page is confined to a narrow column only a few words wide, with wide blank spaces on either side. A quick look at the source for the page reveals that the text has on both sides columns where the width is set to 720 pixels. As a programmer and web developer, I understand the difficulty in developing web pages for more than one browser, but your home p
  • First they come up with the rediculous idea to copyright a business model (imagine having to pay a royalty for having a Point of Sales in your shop)...

    then they tried to copyright laws??? Give me a break.

    • Re:Was this a joke? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nomadic ( 141991 ) <nomadicworld.gmail@com> on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @05:39PM (#6396130) Homepage
      No. The situation is this:

      A private organization creates some specifications for building. They hold the copyright on this, as they are the creators.

      The organization offers the codes to municipal governments for adoption into law.

      The private organization wants to keep the copyright over the material itself. They don't want to lose control of these specifications; if that happened then another individual or private organization could freely use the specifications in their own work (such as in building handbook).

      The court decided that since the private organization in question had offered the specifications to governments for use, they didn't retain ownership over what was adopted into law.

      Now I think the courts made a wise decision. But, you know, it's not a cut-and-dried issue; you can make arguments for both sides. The plaintiffs in this aren't trying to copyright laws--their copyright existed BEFORE the laws were enacted. The question is whether their copyright survives the process of being adopted by governmental entities, and I know this is heresy on slashdot, but not every legal case is a matter of common sense--these are complicated issues.

      • Re:Was this a joke? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by anthony_dipierro ( 543308 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @06:21PM (#6396385) Journal

        The question is whether their copyright survives the process of being adopted by governmental entities

        Sort of, but not exactly. The court agrees that their copyright survives the process of being adopted by government entities. However, it also becomes an uncopyrightable fact, in its entirety and without modification.

        It's kind of an anomoly of copyright law. If two people independently come up with the exact same poem (for instance), they both have independent copyrights on the exact same text. This ruling creates something similar. As law, it is public domain, but as model codes, the copyright stands.

    • No joke at all. Here's the scenario:

      You (the defendant): I demand to know the charges against me and what law I've violated!

      Prosecutor: Sorry; the law is copyrighted, and we don't have signed permission from the copyright owner to give you a copy of that information.

    • then they tried to copyright laws??? Give me a break

      Imagine having to pay to obtain access to something you must comply with.

      Only standards bodies are allowed to pull nonsense like that.

      Now if we can only get some municipality to legislate compliance...

  • That summary page is awful... 1 column of text, 100px wide, tens of pages long. Can someone explain this in plain English for we 'IANAL' folk? What does this mean for the average person?
    • There is this standards setting organization, probably made up of member companies in an industry.

      The standards setting organization is in the business of creating "model" codes. This is common. A better known example would be the Model Penal Code which is a set of proposed criminal laws created by the American Law Institute... in this case, the group was creating model codes for buildings (plumbing, electric, etc.) to be enacted by cities.

      So, you have an organization that creates this work with the in

  • Enact Linux (Score:5, Funny)

    by sleepingsquirrel ( 587025 ) * <Greg,Buchholz&sleepingsquirrel,org> on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @05:16PM (#6395967) Homepage Journal
    Someone should slip the source code for Linux in one of those mamoth appropriation bills Congress passes right before the end of session. Since the lawmakers never read the bills they vote on, and law becomes uncopyrightable *presto* no more SCO problems.

    • Re:Enact Linux (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ender81b ( 520454 ) <wdinger@g m a il.com> on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @05:26PM (#6396055) Homepage Journal
      Then you would have no GPL and no restrictions upon who uses/distributes the code.

      Slashbots are always quick to condemm copyright law and seldom realize that it is because of copyright law that things like Linux and BSD are able to be what they are.
      • Actually, BSD would be a poor example. The only reasons the BSDs remain free is because there remains free versions out there. There's someone willing to maintain a free version. But by the very nature of the BSD license a company can take BSD close the source, make changes (or not) and sell it to consumers for a very pretty penny (usually embedded in hardware). The BSD license does not force anybody to keep their copy open-source, nor does it force them to distribute the work they put into it for free.

      • You fail to realize that without copyright law, individuals and organizations wouldn't be able to restrict distribution, either, therefore abolishing the very problems that RMS created the GPL to address.

        I've always thought of the GPL as "Copyleft". If "Copyright" sits at one extreme, "Copyleft" sits on the other essentially using Copyright law against itself. Public domain (the complete non-existance of "expressive monopolies") sits comfortably in the center.

        Read Stallman's works: it's very clear that

        • You fail to realize that without copyright law, individuals and organizations wouldn't be able to restrict distribution, either, therefore abolishing the very problems that RMS created the GPL to address.

          Getting rid of copyright is only one part of what RMS wants. He always wants to make it illegal to distribute a binary without source code. If copyright law (and thus the GPL) was to be declared invalid today, there would be nothing stopping anyone from distributing Linux binaries and refusing to distri
        • Ah but without copyright law a company could take portions of the code and compile them into Product X and not release the source to the general public. That would violate the spirit of open-source software.

      • Re:Enact Linux (Score:5, Insightful)

        by phliar ( 87116 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @05:51PM (#6396202) Homepage
        ... it is because of copyright law that things like Linux and BSD are able to be what they are.
        This statement is completely false.

        If there were no copyright law, any source code would leak out. Evil Corporation Inc. incorporates "our" free code into their process? No problem; sooner or later there would be employees that are either disgruntled or sympathetic to The Cause; their code would leak out and become public knowledge. Since there is no copyright law, there is no culpability for any free software hacker who uses this code, regardless of whether or not the employee violated an NDA or broke any laws while leaking the code.

        The GPL plays a role in free software, but only because of the way our present copright law is written. Remove copyright and you remove the necessity for the GPL. Remember that in the "good ol' days" that RMS talks about at MIT, there effectively was no copyright; customers could get whatever source code they wanted, and would contribute any improvements back to the manufacturer and the user community. It was only because some manufacturer (of a printer?) refused to divulge the source that RMS got launched on Gnu.

        Note: nowhere in this article is there any claim or statement about whether or not Gnu and/or RMS are good or evil; just some inferences and history.

        • The GPL plays a role in free software, but only because of the way our present copright law is written. Remove copyright and you remove the necessity for the GPL.

          Really? So what prevents company X from taking Open Source code and inserting into product Y without giving credit or releasing the modifications?

          No copyright would basically turn the software world into a BSD style license.
      • Slashbots are always quick to condemm copyright law and seldom realize that it is because of copyright law that things like Linux and BSD are able to be what they are.

        This statement is highly misleading. It's like saying if it weren't for tyrants we wouldn't have revolutions. Well, f'ing duh! If we didn't have tyrants revolutions wouldn't be necessary!

        Copyright law is used by the GPL to protect itself from... drumroll please... copyright law. The parent poster fails to understand this recursive natur
        • What you fail to grasp, apparently, is what would happen if there was no copy right law.

          You see then you would have no GPL. Without a GPL company X would take source code and then insert it into product Y without giving credit, paying money, or re-releasing the source code. Which would violate the GPL and turn all open source products into, effectively, BSD licenses.

          Yep. I sure don't get it.
      • Then you would have no GPL and no restrictions upon who uses/distributes the code.

        Not true... according to the material at this site, the Solicitor General is limiting the effect to organizations. So for any code for which an individual (a 'natural person') owns the copyright, that copyright can't be removed by incorporation into a law.

        You see, the USC specifically prohibits the kind of action you're talking about, which is why I'm a little confused about the Solicitor's reasoning . He seems to be spli
    • Linux is copyrighted, the GPL makes specific exceptions under specific conditions. That is a good thing, because it protects the product.

      If you did that, SCO could make OpenLinux as closed as OpenServer. We couldn't do a damn thing about it.

  • What would the founding fathers think? (Score:4, Informative)

    by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @05:17PM (#6395969) Homepage
    When Thomas Jefferson put the idea of intellectual property into the Constitution of the United States, he did so because he realized that information leaks; once people learn something, they can reuse that knowledge. Jefferson believed that if there was no protection to intellectual property, people would not be encouraged to share knowledge with others. Writers would not write, inventors would not invent, artists would not create art. So in the US Constitution, it says:
    Congress shall have the power [...] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
    The reason why this is important is spelled out in Jefferson's own writings:
    If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it...He who receives an idea from me, receives instructions himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should be spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature ... Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.
    How far are we going to let the copyrighters go? We need to remind people that copyright, like most laws in the US, is a balance between two forces, and the scale should not be tipped too far to one side.

    • When Thomas Jefferson put the idea of intellectual property into the Constitution of the United States,

      Maybe Hamilton, maybe Madison; but Jefferson was not party to the constitutional convention.

      And considering that (as you correctly quote) he was of the "information wants to free" crowd, it makes it even less likely that he wrote the copyright and patent clause, although what you quote [uchicago.edu] was written 26 years after the US constitution and may reflect a change of heart.

      Quoting more from the same do

    • The parent post is a stock troll, originally appearing on Kuro5hin, and gets slipped in here from time to time. It is a willful misrepresentation of Jefferson's views.

      Schwab

  • Public Domain vs OpenSource (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TokyoBoy ( 217214 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @05:17PM (#6395970) Homepage
    This should really be considered "Public Domain" law rather then OpenSource. OpenSource, by definition is copyrighted material. While material in the public domain is without copyright.

  • That site is ugly. Is it just mozilla, or does eveyone have the problem of all the text being in a 20 character column?

    Anyway, doesn't that seem like common sense? How could a law not be public? If a law was copyrighted, does that mean I couldn't reproduce it for the purposes of telling people the laws? What if I gave a (paid) class on laws to be careful of (obscure laws, maybe)?

    A breath of fresh air as someone shows our legal system hasn't gone completely insane...

    • Maybe they're riffing on the classic look of Suck [suck.com], the dear departed daily?
    • Welcome to the wonderful world of FrontPage, the premiere tool for massacring HTML. The problem is that their TABLE and TD widths don't add up. They define the table as 720 wide, and then define 3 columns, including 2 with widths of 720, exluding the middle one where the text is embedded. Konqueror is a little more forgiving of this and renders it fine.

  • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Open sourcing isn't the issue (Score:4, Funny)

    by Bingo Foo ( 179380 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @05:18PM (#6395983)
    The problem is that they won't allow anonymous CVS commits.

  • This is Socialism at its worst (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @05:19PM (#6395994)
    How can the government justify taking away the property rights of the corporations that write our laws?

    Without private ownership of our laws, what incentive will there be for corporations to write innovative new laws? Now that there is no way for businesses to make money writing laws, our nation's lawmaking process is going to wither up and die.

  • "Open source" (Score:5, Informative)

    by sulli ( 195030 ) * on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @05:20PM (#6395998) Journal
    WTF? Are laws only in force when compiled to machine code?

    The law is public domain. Use the correct term, desire for buzzword compliance notwithstanding.

  • "open source" laws (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Petrox ( 525639 ) <pp502.nyu@edu> on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @05:22PM (#6396017) Homepage
    it makes little sense to refer to any law as 'open source.' Laws aren't like open source computer code that can be tinkered with by anybody with the proper knowhow. Laws are altered by a constitutionally defined procedure by the various branches of our government.

    A much better term would be that these laws enter the public domain.

    • Laws aren't like open source computer code that can be tinkered with by anybody with the proper knowhow.

      Sure they are! "Anybody with the proper knowhow" is an activist judiciary. Read just about anything about the Supreme Court and you'll soon realize that they get to tinker a WHOLE lot.

    • Laws aren't like open source computer code that can be tinkered with by anybody with the proper knowhow.

      But they CAN be! ANYBODY can tinker with them. Use the courts for a debugger. Petition an administrative body. Submit samples to a legislator (with or without wining-and-dining him). Write an initiative.

      Laws are altered by a constitutionally defined procedure by the various branches of our government.

      Precicely.

      Anybody can WRITE them. Getting them ADOPTED is a whole 'nother story.

  • Easier to read mirror: (Score:4, Informative)

    by Gunsmithy ( 554829 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @05:22PM (#6396019) Homepage
    http://regionalweb.texoma.net/cr/VEEKbrief.html This may be a bit easier to read...

  • GOOD!!! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Crashmarik ( 635988 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @05:23PM (#6396022)
    Imagine if it hadn't passed.

    Ignorance would have to be an acceptable defence.

    It would allow lawyers to rambus the legal system.

    Seinfeld described lawyers as those annoying people that actually read the back of the box for the odd rules in the game. Imagine if they could now cut out parts of the rules and hide them.

    • Imagine if they could now cut out parts of the rules and hide them.

      They don't have to hide them. They're effectively hidden already- there are so many laws, and they're so complex, written in such a confusing manner, etc- that the average citizen has no chance in HELL of even possibly knowing a fraction of a percent of them, much less understanding them.

      Like the "open source" software arena, we need simplification and consolidation VERY, VERY badly.

      • The law isn't secret. It's just complicated. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ArsSineArtificio ( 150115 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @07:25PM (#6396723) Homepage
        the average citizen has no chance in HELL of even possibly knowing a fraction of a percent of them, much less understanding them

        Fortunately, the average citizen has no chance in HELL of ever needing to know most of them. Quick! What's the statutory quorum for a meeting of your local water board? How many days before trial can you file a motion for summary judgment in your state? How many parts per million of formaldehyde can you have in crazy glue? Answer: who cares? If for some reason it matters to you, you can go and seek *that particular fact* out. Or hire a professional to find it out for you. But the average reader sitting in his chair reading Slashdot is not going to go to jail over his ignorance of these matters.

        The laws that *matter* on a day to day basis are the ordinary criminal laws - and you already know those. Don't run anybody over. Don't shoplift. Don't steal money that somebody asked you to look after.

        The law isn't secret. It's just complicated. It's complicated because the scope of human interactions is complicated. Some people buy houses from each other. Some people sail ships in waters that don't belong to any country. Some people steal things in complicated ways. Some people die and ask for unusual things to be done with their property afterwards.

        The legislature's job is to make laws as clearly as possible to help keep all this running smoothly. The lobbyist's job is to suggest legislation, or keep an eye on others peoples' suggestions, in hopes that laws favorable to them will be created. (And legislators listen to them because it's hard to be an expert in both, say, environmental water quality regulation and securities oversight. Lobbyists have sway not merely because they have money, but because they have expertise which they can share with legislators. Wise legislators, of course, listen to both sides.) The judge's job is to interpret the legislature's laws, as well as the traditions passed down from earlier judges. The appellate judge's job is to create law in the cracks where the legislature hasn't, like putty joining everything together. The lawyer's job is to make sense of all this and act as an interface between the system and an individual person.

        None of this is mysterious. And none of it is a conspiracy against you. Nobody likes having complicated laws. It's a pain in the ass for judges, and for lawyers, and for ordinary citizens. Want to know why so many corporations are based in Delaware? It's because they have really good corporate laws that are straightforward and easy to understand. Makes it a good place to set up shop.

        ASA
        • I think you make some excellent points. IAAL, and I find that areas I do not have familiarity with are incomprehensible at first. When I start to dig into them, there is usually a fair amount of good sense behind them. There are, of course, exceptions, but these are generally far and few between.

          Trial procedures in my state, for instance, are governed by the state Rules of Civil Procedure with some local rules in effect county by county. They seem like water to a fish to me now -- I barely notice them. Bef

  • Sympathize but... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by vanyel ( 28049 ) * on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @05:26PM (#6396051) Journal
    I sympathize with the standards organizations, but a free society cannot tolerate hidden laws. The standards organizations created the standards specifically to be placed into law, and that means full knowledge that it must be public. The people that care about the standards will still participate, as it's in their own interest to do so.
    • What about standards that are incorporated into laws?

      In the case stated, it seems obvious that the organisation itself promoted the adoption of the standard into law, and was then surprised and upset by the result (loss of copyright).

      But what about the situation where someone else promotes the adoption of a standard as law?

      How would the state compensate the authors of the standard?

      In the UK, we have the BSI, which is responsible for the authoring of standards in all sorts of areas, and then we have laws (su

      • In the US, there is a notion of "Emminent Domain", which is the procedure under which the state may take property (road right-of-way is a common use, though even under this procedure, the state has to pay "fair market value"). It would seem that would apply.

        I would think the correct procedure would be to negotiate: "we'd like to make your standard law, will you permit?" They might agree for a fee, if not, or if the fee's unreasonable, then the legal body can do their own. Probably it would be cheaper to
      • Laws are enacted for the benefit of the public. One of the bedrocks of jurisprudence is that the law must be publicly known for it to have any benefit at all, otherwise ignorance would be used as a defence. Righly so, to ask the public to remit a fee to obtain a copy of the laws that we are to keep completely undermines this principle.

        Yes, there is a cost in establishing certain standards. If you wish these standards to become law, you either must be willing to bear the cost or work with the government to
      • "This would only be fair if the publisher themselves had the overhead of generating the standards to begin with.

        I'm ambivalent about this decision - yes, laws are public domain, but to deprive organisations that exist for the public good of income is surely bad."

        Please re-read what you wrote.

        To allow LAWS to be kept private is tyrrany. How do you protest a law you feel is unjust if you can't re-publish it without the permission of the copyright holder?

        And yes, this is possible in building codes... Wha

  • Misuse of "Open Source" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dwonis ( 52652 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @05:28PM (#6396067)
    s/open source/in the public domain/g
  • I must copyright and patent myself before they try to clone me!!!
  • All I can
    say is that
    the referenced
    article is one
    nice column.
    That's for
    sure.
  • then I'd have to pay someone to read it. I know ignorence isn't that great of a defence in court, but it shouldn't be the public's responsibility to go out of its way to find out what's right and wrong.
  • They can see how copyright laws screw up the ability to run the legal system. It's such an unreasonable restriction, they won't even tolerate it. So how can they tolerate the RIAA, the DMCA, the MPAA, and copyright restrictions in general without being hypocrites.

  • Plain and simple you can't copyright fact and a law is fact. Hence "fact of law".
    • Yes, but you can still keep the nuisance factor high. Most likely, one is going to have to go down to the courthouse and to peruse the available building codes or whatever. However, to actually have a copy you'll have to buy it from someone.

      * The US government makes a nice little living selling periodicals and Government documents (government document offices are neat little places). Shouldn't the US Geological Survey of Western States for Blue Topaz be available free? It was our tax money?

      * The sta

      • Re:You can't copy right fact (Score:4, Informative)

        by egburr ( 141740 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @08:13PM (#6396974) Homepage
        From the Federal Register's web site http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html [gpoaccess.gov]

        Published by the Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the Federal Register is the official daily publication for rules, proposed rules, and notices of Federal agencies and organizations, as well as executive orders and other presidential documents. It is updated daily by 6 a.m. and is published Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. GPO Access contains Federal Register volumes from 59 (1994) to the present.

        Documents are available in Summary, PDF, ASCII text, or HTML format. HTML documents are available from 2000 forward and provide hypertext links to Web sites mentioned in the FR document. The active HTTP-link feature will be added to previous

        Federal Register databases in the near future. The HTML documents can be saved as text files with no loss or change in data.

        There you can search or browse through all editions of the Federal Register from 1994 to now. You can also:

        • Sign up to freely receive the daily Federal Register Table of Contents via e-mail.
        • Find, review, and submit comments on Federal rules that are open for comment and published in the Federal Register using Regulations.gov.
        • Purchase a subscription to the printed edition of the Federal Register.
        • Find issues of the Federal Register (including issues prior to 1994) at a local Federal depository library.

        Access to the information is free. If you want an official hardcopy version, you have to pay for it.

    • 'Round our pale yellow sun,
      Orbit nine heavenly bodies
      And each
      Reflects the morning light differently
      Across its day side

      There...I've just come up with some incredibly crappy free-verse poetry that also happens to be factual in nature. Furthermore, I claim copyright on the poetry. Does this mean I've also laid copyright to the fact? Bollocks! Of course not. As you pointed out, it's impossible to copyright fact.

      The statement of fact, on the other hand, can be copyrighted. I can copyright the poem a

  • Section 105 of the 1976 Copyright acts covers this (Score:4, Informative)

    by kaltkalt ( 620110 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @06:03PM (#6396273)
    105. Subject matter of copyright:
    United States Government Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise. If public interest groups draft model laws that they want enacted, they should be prepared to lose any copyright in those model laws if, in fact, they get adopted. What the hell would they want to keep the copyright for, anyway? Other than cock-strocking.

    I suppose, however, that applies only to US government works and not US State Government works. Just another reason why we don't need states, and they sure as hell shouldn't have any rights. When has "state's rights" ever been used as an argument for anything worthy and moral?

    • When has "state's rights" ever been used as an argument for anything worthy and moral?

      That's kind of funny. I'm going to assume you haven't had a government class yet. Here's a rough list:

      • antebellum northern states outlawing slavery
      • California allowing medical marijuana (ok, maybe this is questionable)
      • Michigan requiring driver's ed before a minor can get a license (as far as I know, this applies to all to every state, but Michigan was the first)
      • New York requiring seatbelts to be worn in cars (applies

  • Copyright Please Read (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @06:26PM (#6396414)
    Copyright is automatic you write something it has Copyright even this what I am typing has Copyright. The question for the Copyright holder is will I or will I not protect it. As a Copyright holder I have the right to say that you can use it how you wish.

    Now Copyright does Not mean that all stuff you have the right to charge money on. Once decared public domain all right to charge money for it are gone. As in this case they said that laws once passed were public domain. This mean If I think up a good law and someone wants to pass it for the first time at least they have to give me credit unless I tell them that they can take the credit.

    Now if it might be required to buy me out or hire me or do something to get the law. What do you think some of the public servents get payed to do.

    Basicly Copyright does go on. Now a goverment might try to place a law with a read fee but this is not good as if this is required the best you could get in court
    judge: did you know about xyz law.
    defendat: No I could not afford to pay the fee to find out about it.
    judge: You are Free to go.

    Now the reason why is simple you can not be charged for doing something wrong if they was not a fair chance to find out about it. And the judge could not tell you the law with out paying the fee if the judge to tell you the law there is a fair chance that you would just get of with a warning and get to know the law for free anyhow.

    Now lets get to the tricky bit there is no reson why laws could not be a licence simlar to gpl not this would have to be stated when the law is passed. That another ruling body (goverments) who wanted to use the law would have to buy it. But every one else could read it for free and use it for free so no Judge problem.

    Now there is no reason why the law could not be rewrite by working backward how the law effected people and writing a new law that did the same thing just a different way. Basicly copyright is extramelly weak. And normally from a developers point of view can not afford code around.
    • Copyright is not automatic. One must actually bother to make the effort of providing notices that this work is your intellectual property. Until then the work is considered in the public domain. In the majority of situations involving copyrighted works being included in laws, you are able to provide that information as a public service so long as you mention who the owner of the work being included is.

  • What's the motivation? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by macwhiz ( 134202 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2003 @11:56PM (#6398142)
    What's the motivation for a third party to write a model building code and get it enacted as a law?

    Is it an altruistic urge to ensure the safety of the general public?

    I submit that, if such an urge were the chief reason for writing a model building code, groups like SBCCI wouldn't care if people copied the code. After all, if you keep people from easily getting the code -- which is supposed to keep people safe -- you're encouraging people to be less safe. No code, no idea if you're doing it right.

    What other motivation could there be?

    By trying to assert copyright on the enacted model laws, groups like SBCCI show that money is a major motivation. As long as the drafting group holds a legally-recognized copyright, they can soak the populace for any amount they wish. People need access to these codes, whether it's a contractor building a skyscraper or a homeowner building a deck. If the only source for the text of the code is the drafting group, it's a huge opportunity for profit.

    If you agree with my opinion that money, not safety, seems to be the biggest motivation for the drafters of model codes, consider this: The codes are frequently updated. When the code is updated, those who needed it must have purchased it again. I think that perhaps this might have lead to code revisions that weren't strictly necessary for safety, but rather, revisions that ensured everyone would need to buy a new copy of the code.

    Kind of like how a lot of software upgrades work. Remember the days when word processors changed file formats with every major revision?

    I hope this court decision will ensure that building codes are about safety, and not profit. Those who draft the code need to be concerned about safety first and foremost, not about the money to be made in publication.

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