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If you publish Georgia's state laws, you'll get sued for copyright and lose

arstechnica.com

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Re: If you publish Georgia's state laws, you'll get sued for copyright and lose

#31

Post by ar0 »

csneeky wrote: post #17

Not debating that Georgia should make it easier for folks to do what they want with the copy they publish for free but... What's fair is that LexisNexis be compensated for the value it has added to that Law (e.g., the "annotations"/links). They did the work. It is up to them how to share it. And sharing for free isn't always a viable business. Note that there is nothing to stop Public.Resource.Org or anyone else from…

I agree that the problem as far as I understand it is not really that related to copyright: the law (unannotated) is freely available, as it should be, and of course value-adding annotations by private enterprise can hold enforcable copyright. (The references in other comments below to EU regulations etc. are thus not really applicable, as also in the EU you have freely available laws but privately copyrighted annotations and comments to these laws.)

What I gather from the article, though, and which I do find in a way even stranger than the copyright question, is this: Apparently Georgia has made the annotated version of their law "official"! Can this be right? For me, this sounds far worse than the copyright question - it would mean that you give an official stamp of approval to privately prepared annotations?

The article is not that clear on this question. Wikipedia [1] has some more on it, but not being a lawyer, I also can't answer the question I would have about it, which is this: What's the role of these privately prepared annotations for the judiciary process? Are they treated like law, because they are published together with the law? Or are they treated like any other private comment / annotations out there would? This, for me, seems to be the crucial question. If it is the former, they should be freely available (and, more importantly, not be written by a private company!). If it is the latter, then I think LexisNexis has some point claiming their copyright, no?

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

Re: If you publish Georgia's state laws, you'll get sued for copyright and lose

#32

Post by YCode »

ivraatiems wrote: post #18
bighi wrote: post #7

And here I am, again and again being reminded how the US can be so backwards in some issues here and there. Not making THEIR OWN LAWS in its entirety available for free for every citizen? What the hell is this?

It's important to note that Georgia is one state out of fifty; most states don't do this and many have the entire body of their laws available online from the official source, not a third-party provider (And federal law certainly is as well.) What is fair to say is that the patchwork nature of America's state/federal system divide makes these kinds of gross inconsistencies happen more often than they maybe should, an…

Someone else mentioned the version made available to the public is not the annotated version, and apparently the annotations are considered as official parts of the law.

This I think was the sticking point for the article.

Re: If you publish Georgia's state laws, you'll get sued for copyright and lose

#34

Post by roderickm »

csneeky wrote: post #17

Not debating that Georgia should make it easier for folks to do what they want with the copy they publish for free but... What's fair is that LexisNexis be compensated for the value it has added to that Law (e.g., the "annotations"/links). They did the work. It is up to them how to share it. And sharing for free isn't always a viable business. Note that there is nothing to stop Public.Resource.Org or anyone else from…

Judge Story "went on to acknowledge the Georgia situation is 'an unusual case because most official codes are not annotated and most annotated codes are not official.' Despite the fact the OCGA is official law, the judge said its annotations are entitled to copyright. The Georgia General Assembly has made clear 'that the OCGA contains both law and commentary,' Story wrote, and the two are distinguishable."

Removing commentary or replacing with original commentary would abridge the official code.

If LexisNexis should be compensated for the value they added, then the state should pay them for that value, just as they pay the legislators to write the law. The resulting code should be freely available to every citizen bound by it.

Re: If you publish Georgia's state laws, you'll get sued for copyright and lose

#35

Post by marcosdumay »

jcizzle wrote: post #19

Here's the full, freely available state of Georgia code: http://www.legis.ga.gov/en-US/default.aspx . It seems like some folks may not like that a private company does the hosting or that they have exclusive rights to its reproduction. You could consider some reasons this might be the case that are reasonable, like the cost of maintaining it is actually cheaper by having a company who has the appropriate resources an…

The article says many times that this is not the official code. That means it's useless, what one must follow is the official one, that is annotated by a private party, and paywalled.

Re: If you publish Georgia's state laws, you'll get sued for copyright and lose

#36

Post by pharrington »

jcizzle wrote: post #19

Here's the full, freely available state of Georgia code: http://www.legis.ga.gov/en-US/default.aspx . It seems like some folks may not like that a private company does the hosting or that they have exclusive rights to its reproduction. You could consider some reasons this might be the case that are reasonable, like the cost of maintaining it is actually cheaper by having a company who has the appropriate resources an…

"Free" in relation to pricing is very different from "free" in relation to ownership by the commons. The law being the latter is crucial to a well functioning democracy.

Re: If you publish Georgia's state laws, you'll get sued for copyright and lose

#37

Post by M_Grey »

narrowrail wrote: post #30
M_Grey wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was literally founded on those things, in the sense that the original inhabitants were about 50% indentured and they built the damned place. Saying that the US wasn't founded on these realities is like saying the AU wasn't founded as a prison colony.

As someone who is part Cherokee (on the Dawes' Rolls), what do you mean by 'original inhabitants'?

In context, what do you think? Did your people found the US, or practice indentured servitude and slavery? As I understand it you were part of a very different and much older nation that predated the current one. Again, as I understand the people I'm describing came by and decided to take it from you, founding a new one its place. I'm not endorsing that, and my ancestry is utterly unrelated to either group's history.

Re: If you publish Georgia's state laws, you'll get sued for copyright and lose

#39

Post by dsp1234 »

jcizzle wrote: post #25
ivraatiems wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is completely reasonable to take the position that the law should be freely accessible to all, and also the process of providing it should not be in the hands of a private entity, or if it must be, that said entity cannot do things like be the exclusive provider, or charge egregiously for things like copies in a reasonable medium (e. g. paper or CD). It's not a "team" thing, and I reject wholly the implica…

But it is freely available, I included the link.

freely available, if you agree to a non-government terms of service which:

1.) gives them right to force you to remove links to the content (section 6.b)

2.) gives them the right to advertise while showing you the law (section 8)

3.) does not require the provider to have accurate text, or be free from malware (section 11)

4.) requires indemnification (section 18)

5.) requires that the jurisdiction be New York (section 22)

6.) terms can change at any time, for any reason, without notice (section 26)

7.) cannot be used for commercial purposes (section 2.1)

8.) nor make a copy (section 2.1)

It doesn't cost any money to access it online, but the limitations on actually using are very real.

Want to provide a link to it via a blog to educate your local neighborhood? Want to know that the official law is free from errors? Want to use the law, but hold the provider accountable if the information is grossly incorrect? Want to sue the provider in Georgia since that's the official law? Want to know that the terms of service stay consistent from day to day? Want to use the law to help your business succeed? Want to provide a copy of the law to others so that they can educate themselves?

All of those items are restricted in some way by these terms of service, which are required before access to the law is allowed.

Re: If you publish Georgia's state laws, you'll get sued for copyright and lose

#40

Post by MaxfordAndSons »

mikekchar wrote: post #24

How does case law work in the US? Must these annotations be used in interpreting the law, or is it merely an indication of how the law has been interpreted previously? To me, this is the crucial point. If the judge is forced to use the annotations in interpreting the law, then it seems clear that it is part of the law. If it is not, then I can completely understand how it is covered by copyright. I suppose the other…

IANAL but it's my understanding that, for low court cases, it's not that a judge is forced to abide by the case law precedents so much as that they're overwhelmingly likely to, so in practice the annotations are probably essential reading for anticipating how a case will play out. And the unannotated law are probably akin to a formal tech spec - not very useful to anyone except the primary implementor, and especially not to laypeople trying to learn the law or self defend.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precedent#United_States_legal_...

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