Tag Archives: private laws

Carl Malamud has been fighting for free public access to private standards (like building codes) that are “incorporated by reference” into the law. Such standards are usually copyrighted and not published in official, public domain versions of the law. The federal district court in Washington DC has just ruled that this practice of, essentially, copyrighting the law is legal.

• Federal Court Basically Says It’s Okay To Copyright Parts Of Our Laws, by Mike Masnick, techdirt (Feb 3rd 2017).
• Memorandum Opinion United States District Court For The District Of Columbia. American Society For Testing and Materials, Et Al., and American Educational Research Association, Inc. Et Al., v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc. Case No. 13-cv-1215 (TSC), Case No. 14-cv-0857 (TSC). Case 1:14-cv-00857-TSC Document 117 Filed 02/02/17.

The court basically ordered Malamud to delete all these standards from the internet saying:

the public interest is served by the policy interests that underlie the Copyright Act itself, namely the protection of financial incentives for the continued creation of valuable works, and the continued value in maintaining the public-private system in place in the U.S. to ensure continued development of technical standards.

techdirt comments: “Did you get that ridiculous sleight of hand? The public is served by no longer having access to the law because it’s better for some private organizations to get rich off of the standards that are a part of the law, or else such standards might not be developed. Huh?” [emphasis added]