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Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online

nytimes.com

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Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online

#41

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ebg13 wrote: post #34
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the abuse of "terrrorism"...abuses of power The federal court opinion [1], which rules in favor of Malamud's NGO, does not once mention "terrorism". The case is a copyright one. (And an important one at that.) I'm guessing the quote was from the lawyers' remarks, not the actual charges. So serious faux pas more than abuse of power. [1] http://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/201711589....

You're conflating "accused of" and "charged with". Note that the title does not say "charged with".

> You're conflating "charged with" and "accused of". Note the title does not say "charged with"

We don't have any context beyond a Georgia lawyer saying "strategy of terrorism." Given how broadly that term is used nowadays, sort of like "war on X", this could have been a reference to Public.Resource.Org's legal or PR strategy or many other things.

It's a terrible choice of words, particularly for a government lawyer. But I don't see the evidence in the text to support the headline that he was accused, formally or informally, of terrorism. (Nor that he believed he was fighting terrorism, versus copyright, accusations or charges.)

TL; DR A lawyer using the term "terrorism" loosely is not the most interesting facet of this case.

Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online

#42

Post by baybal2 »

Nasrudith wrote: post #2

Really the abuse of "terrrorism" so blatantly even by the standards of a government should qualify for some pretty damn harsh defamation law to the officials trying to hide behind the state. Those sorts of abuses of power are the kind of thing where we actually do need to be "tough on crime" for if we wish to be remotely free.

USA has very little in terms of law on personal liabilities of officials and their scope. The dismal legal history for USA CFR 25 11.448 - abuse of office is a proof of that.

USA is one of few countries where there is close to nothing amounting to codified criminal abuse of office laws, the few criminal abuse of office laws are state level in USA. The wider official crimes class of offences, is also poorly represented, if not to say not being recognised as such.

Even if you compare USA to worst offenders on that front, from how it was in USSR, to China and other joke polities. They did jail more office abusers than US. Sounds silly, but look at the digits.

While this was never indicative of political commitment, and USSR was horridly corrupt through its whole history, there was at least a minimal acknowledgement that completely useless/incompetent people must be kicked out from official positions, or after demonstrable public screw up.

Here is a list of things amounting to official crimes in self respecting polities:

- Criminal incompetence

- Criminal dereliction of duty

- Insubordination

- Providing criminal agency

- Criminal conflict of interest

- Exceeding official authority

- Conduct of crime under official authority (have no idea for a better translation)

- Criminal deprivation of rights

- Failing official audit

- Criminal violations of cadre/appointment/recruitment policies/procedures

- Loss of official records/communications/accounting

- Income/assets beyond known means while serving in office (a charge as such, literately)

Any real code will have few times more of the above, and of stuff nowhere remotely considered an official crime in USA.

Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online

#43

Post by baybal2 »

macspoofing wrote: post #36
burtonator wrote: post #17

This is what they accused Aaron Swartz of too. "Misdemeanor Terrorism" was one of the charges I believe. The lawyer that said that this is 'terrorism' should be disbarred. This is borderline slander.

Not quite. With Aaron Swartz there was no question of copyright infringement. He was infringing. With Carl Malamud and the state of Georgia there is ambiguity on the copyrightable status of certain kinds of legal materials (like descriptions and summaries of laws and legal decisions). This is what the courts for. Both sides have some basis for their position even though I side with Malamud on this point.

> Not quite. With Aaron Swartz there was no question of copyright infringement. He was infringing.

He wasn't. He was 100% entitled to use his library access, and download every file he did download.

Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online

#44

Post by thechao »

unlimit wrote: post #18
samfriedman wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frequently the letter of the law itself is publicly available, but there are also significant annotations and explanations that form the real body of the law/code as used by the courts, law enforcement, etc. It is these annotations that are copyrighted by the large legal companies contracted to write, compile and publish them. For that reason it is a common occurrence that the version of the law citizens are held to…

> Frequently the letter of the law itself is publicly available, but there are also significant annotations and explanations that form the real body of the law/code as used by the courts, law enforcement, etc So its the interpretation that is used. Then shouldn't the interpretation be open to public? What kind of justice system is this?

Personally, I feel that the interpretation is almost 100% in the public domain. This is a document created for the state (of Georgia) at the expense of the people of the state (of Georgia); it naturally falls into public domain.

The lower court ruled that the annotations were public domain, and the Supreme Court will (hopefully) concur. The state (of Georgia) has a ... requirement(?) to defend (and enforce) the statutes (and contracts) as passed by its legislator. If the state (of Georgia) didn't enforce its own laws, now, that would be a lawless, chaotic state; they'd also not be able to engage in contracts with companies (too much risk). Instead, this thing is going through the well-understood & time-worn constitutional process, as intended: the state (of Georgia) did a thing; a citizen did a thing; they sue each other; and, now, the Supreme Court will decide: is the citizen in the right or is the state (of Georgia) in the right.

Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online

#45

Post by JumpCrisscross »

baybal2 wrote: post #42
Nasrudith wrote: post #2

Really the abuse of "terrrorism" so blatantly even by the standards of a government should qualify for some pretty damn harsh defamation law to the officials trying to hide behind the state. Those sorts of abuses of power are the kind of thing where we actually do need to be "tough on crime" for if we wish to be remotely free.

USA has very little in terms of law on personal liabilities of officials and their scope. The dismal legal history for USA CFR 25 11.448 - abuse of office is a proof of that. USA is one of few countries where there is close to nothing amounting to codified criminal abuse of office laws, the few criminal abuse of office laws are state level in USA. The wider official crimes class of offences, is also poorly represente…

> USA is one of few countries where there is close to nothing amounting to codified criminal abuse of office laws

There is a lot of law, at the federal and state levels, concerning abuse of power [1]. This takes the form of both statutes, which tend to use the term of art "malfeasance in office," e.g. [2], and court precedent (both of which are the law).

> there was at least a minimal acknowledgement [in the USSR] that completely useless/incompetent people must be kicked out from official positions

Office abusers tend to lose their office through elections and term limits. Where this safety valve doesn't exist, a more pointed approach is needed.

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

[2] https://law.justia.com/codes/louisiana/2011/rs/title14/rs14-...

Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online

#46

Post by howard941 »

cs702 wrote: post #14

The Republic of Georgia claims that the legal code establishing the rights and obligations of its citizens (including annotations commissioned and approved by the state) should not be freely available to its citizens or anyone else, because it is copyrighted by the state. According to the article, 20 other states around the world are making similar copyright claims. The written laws of a state (along with annotations…

Agreed, but anticipate a counterargument that the laws are available for you to study at local libraries and county courthouses. (copyedited)

Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online

#47

Post by cafard »

baybal2 wrote: post #42
Nasrudith wrote: post #2

Really the abuse of "terrrorism" so blatantly even by the standards of a government should qualify for some pretty damn harsh defamation law to the officials trying to hide behind the state. Those sorts of abuses of power are the kind of thing where we actually do need to be "tough on crime" for if we wish to be remotely free.

USA has very little in terms of law on personal liabilities of officials and their scope. The dismal legal history for USA CFR 25 11.448 - abuse of office is a proof of that. USA is one of few countries where there is close to nothing amounting to codified criminal abuse of office laws, the few criminal abuse of office laws are state level in USA. The wider official crimes class of offences, is also poorly represente…

"that completely useless/incompetent people must be kicked out from official positions, or after demonstrable public screw up"

Or anyway that somebody had to carry the can for unfortunate events: saboteur engineers, murderous doctors, what have you.

Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online

#48

Post by bilbo0s »

cptskippy wrote: post #32
bilbo0s wrote: post #15

Why would there be any issue at all with putting the law online? Serious question. What do, say, reporters in Georgia do when they write a story about court proceedings or what-have-you? Is the state code just never referenced? Or explained? Or even just written out so that people can see what happened and how it worked? Is the general public simply not allowed to know what laws they live under? Or is it that only pe…

I think the issue is that it's out of their control. You can access the Georgia laws online however they're in an incredibly hard to use/search/read format from a Lexus Nexus portal they pay to have hosted but which gives them complete control of the content.

But legal obligations to the people cannot be contracted away. Court decisions are public. Statutes are public. Again, to my knowledge, (which must obviously be limited), you cannot contract away the right of people to access the law. Nor can the right of people to write, or comment on, the law be contracted away. You just can't contract away First Amendment rights. You can't say, "Well, we have a publisher, so no writing or reporting on that." The government is explicitly forbidden from entering into any arrangement that would do that.

What's in this contract that makes that legal? That's what we need to get to, because whatever it is making this behavior legal, it has to be removed. And it has to be made explicitly illegal by the Supremes. (You wouldn't think you'd need to do that, but there's always a few politicians everywhere who can't be trusted to act in good faith.)

Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online

#49

Post by stupidcar »

cs702 wrote: post #14

The Republic of Georgia claims that the legal code establishing the rights and obligations of its citizens (including annotations commissioned and approved by the state) should not be freely available to its citizens or anyone else, because it is copyrighted by the state. According to the article, 20 other states around the world are making similar copyright claims. The written laws of a state (along with annotations…

The text of the laws themselves are open-source. It's the annotations that are the issue and this is, at least, an area where there is a reasonable ambiguity. Hopefully one that will be resolved in favour of greatest openness, but the state's position is at least not totally unreasonable.

What is unreasonable, and why this is getting attention on HN is because Malamud's actions in publish the annotations has been described as "terrorism". Perhaps this is just one boneheaded lawyer speaking carelessly, but maybe it's a deliberate attempt to conflate political activism, which may often involve breaking the law or defying authority in a harmless way in pursuit of a political goal, with terrorism, which involves breaking the law in a violent or dangerous way for the same ends. It's important that such a distinction is kept, and the state cannot depict any and all political motivated misbehaviour as "terrorism"

Re: Sued for copyright infringement for putting legal materials online

#50

Post by cure »

gus_massa wrote: post #28
cure wrote: post #8

Carl Malamud does very important work. You can fund Public.Resource.Org at https://public.resource.org/about/donate.html A recurring monthly donation is probably most valuable to them (see "Other Donation Options").

[Remove the two spaces before https, so the link becomes clicky.]

Clicky is good :) Done, thanks!
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