Federal Court Says Public Safety Laws Can Be Locked Behind Paywalls

> That's the point - the government doesn't give you a license for discoveries, only for creative work.

Creative work is a discovery, and this is trivial to see: you can write a program to enumerate all possible English texts, and so discover every possible written work that has, can or will ever be made.

So it's more correct to say that the government gives you a license for certain kinds of discoveries, and the EFF are saying that this sort of work does not belong in the protected category. That's not entirely unreasonable from what I can see.

  what if a lawmaker has it out for a particular publisher or writer,
  and purposefully quotes their copyrighted texts in legislation

Technically, this ability already exists in some ways. Parliamentary Privilege [1] allows members of parliament to speak freely without fear of legal sanction.

As a result of a defamation case brought against Hansard [2] in the 19th century, parliamentary publications (e.g. a transcript from parliament) are also protected by absolute privilege [3].

That's UK law, but it's a common template for Westminster-system style legislatures.

So a law-maker could read out a book in its entirety, which could then be published in its entirety as a transcript of parliamentary publications. It's social norms and conventions on parliamentary behaviour that prevent its abuse, rather than copyright law.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_privilege

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hansard

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_Papers_Act_1840

(edit: typo)

>We’re disappointed by this misguided ruling, but the case is far from over.

Sounds like its going to be appealed.

I think the government needs to stop passing regulations that just copy the rules of private standards organizations unless they are also allowed to publish the regulations. Private organizations will do what they will, the public can't control private actors or force them to give up their right to collect money for their standards (at least not without a fight).

I juts don't understand why the government would just make laws without ensuring the right to publish them or make them widely available to the people, is just irresponsible and goes to show how little thought goes into all these regulations that govern our lives.

"But that's my point - the question in this trial wasn't whether the State can use closed standards as law, but whether someone can violate the copyright of these standards just because the State refers to them in the law."

The answer is yes. :)

At best, it's a taking.

"My point exactly! They should be suing the State for doing that! Not trying to invalidate some company's copyrighted standard."

You have this very backwards, in the sense that the organization deliberately worked with the states to make this happen.

You would have a better argument if the states had forced it to happen.

In any case, you also have "who should sue who" wrong.

1. You can't sue the states in federal court they have sovereign immunity ;) But if you could ....

2. At best, this is a taking by the state. It's the problem of the standards folks to sue the state, not the problem of the rest of the world of trying to use the law.

The ACA already forces every US citizen to buy a product from a private company. This isn't much different.

The Supreme Court has already upheld this as a "tax", so expect the same result.