[ga] Re: ] Open Access to the Law in the U.S.

["Jeffrey A. Williams" <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

George and all,

  Thank you George for you kind and specifically referenced
support.  Let's hope that legal entities and government contractors
such as ICANN will *get* the proper message.  Although I am
hopeful, I realistically recognize that such hope may be doubtful
to be realized in my lifetime given the level of political rancor that
is self evident.

George Willingmyre wrote:

>  I support a "full daylight" policy for public access to laws
> and regulations with which compliance is mandatory.  Indeed there are
> such transparency obligations on central and local governments  within
> the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade.
> http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/17-tbt_e.htm "2.11Members
> shall ensure that all technical regulations which have been adopted
> are published promptly or otherwise made available in such a manner as
> to enable interested parties in other Members to become acquainted
> with them."  See also Legislative and Regulatory Underpinnings of US
> Government use of Standards in Technical Regulations and Procurements
> and the development by Government of voluntary  standards
> http://www.gtwassociates.com/answers/Legislativeunderpinning.htmlSo
> for  "technical regulations" with which compliance is mandatory,
> central and local governments could meet this expectation by posting
> them to the web.  Central and local governments could also charge
> reasonable fees for paper copies of such "technical regulations" when
> requested. However the issue becomes  complicated when "technical
> regulations"  embody text of standards from private sector standards
> developers.  There is a precedent  case
> http://www.gtwassociates.com/answers/veeck.htm  In the Supreme Court
> of the United States Southern Building Code Congress International,
> Inc, Petitioner Peter Veeck, D/B/A Regional Web No. 02-355.  I have
> copied below relevant text: "This case concerns model codes written
> and copyrighted by a private organization. The codes apply to the
> construction, alteration, use, occupancy, and maintenance of buildings
> and the electrical, plumbing, mechanical and gas systems in them and
> provided criminal misdemeanor penalties for failure to comply. The
> private organization offers the codes to government entities for
> enactment into law. Two municipalities enacted ordinances that adopted
> the model codes by reference.  The question presented is: Whether
> copyright law gives the private organization the right to restrict
> individuals from making copies of the material incorporated by
> reference in the municipal codes of the two municipalities." The
> Supreme court in making its decision not to hear the case essentially
> accepted the US solicitor General's  advice about a June 10, 2002
> decision of the court of appeals from the Fifth Circuit "Supreme Court
> need not reconsider a  June 10, 2002 decision  of  United States Court
> of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (293 F.3d 791 (5th Cir. 2002)).   The
> Fifth Circuit had concluded that SBCCI retains the copyright in its
> standard, but that "[w]hen those codes are enacted into law ... they
> become to that extent 'the law' of the governmental entities and may
> be reproduced or distributed as 'the law' of those jurisdictions."
> The Fifth Circuit further observed that laws are not subject to
> federal copyright law, and "public ownership of the law means that
> 'the law' is in the 'public domain' for whatever use the citizens
> choose to make of it." Many private sector standards organizations
> depend on the sale of standards to support their infrastructure.
> The implication for  such SDOs  was identified by Dissenting opinion
> to the Fifth court decision  by WIENER, Circuit Judge, joined by KING,
> Chief Judge, and HIGGINBOTHAM, DAVIS, STEWART, and DENNIS, Circuit
> Judges, dissenting: "Technical codes and standards have become
> necessary, pervasive, and indispensable ingredients of Twenty-First
> Century life in this country; regrettably, today's majority opinion
> has a real potential of drastically changing the societal landscape
> through that opinion's predictably deleterious effects on these codes
> and standards, their authors, and the public and private entities that
> daily use and depend on them" Many standards developers whose
> standards become mandatory by law or regulation  strive to minimize
> the risk their standards will become  public domain by seeking that
> laws and regulations do not copy the standard's text but refer to the
> standard by reference.  See  Regulatory Adoption by Reference of
> standards Copyright Considerations at
> http://www.gtwassociates.com/answers/RegulatoryAdoptionbyReference.htmCarl
> Malamed has posted to http://bulk.resource.org/codes.gov/  links to
> the text of many copyrighted private sector standards whose
> requirements may have been   incorporated word for word in the
> technical regulations of many local governments. There is no clear
> path forward except inevitable  litigation revisiting the Veeck
> decision.  I am not an attorney and this is not legal advice.
> Standards developers already face "pirate" organizations who resell
> their copyrighted standards without permission.  See for example in
> China: http://www.bz02.com/  Such litigation affirming  the Veeck
> decision will dramatically impact the SDOs' business models of SDOs
> the text of whose standards are incorporated in laws and regulations.
> It remains to be seen how such a decision would impact the copyright
> of standards incorporated by reference  in laws and regulations  Best
> Regards, George T. Willingmyre, P.E.
> President, GTW Associates
> 1012 Parrs Ridge Drive
> Spencerville, MD 20868 USA
> www.gtwassociates.com  1.301.421.4138----- Original Message -----From:
> "Jeffrey A. Williams" <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>To: "Pranesh Prakash"
> <the.solipsist@xxxxxxxxx>; "icann legal" <jeffrey@xxxxxxxxx>Cc: "A2K
> Discussion List" <a2k@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "Ga" <ga@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>;
> "GAC Rep" <ssene@xxxxxxxxxxxx>; "Greg Abbott"
> <greg.abbott@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; "DOC/NTIA ICANN Rep"
> <aheineman@xxxxxxxxxxxx>; "icann board" <icann-board@xxxxxxxxx>;
> "ICANN Dan Halloran" <halloran@xxxxxxxxx>; "ICANN Kim Davies"
> <kim.davies@xxxxxxxxx>; "ICANN Marc Salvatierra"
> <marc.salvatierra@xxxxxxxxx>; "ICANN Policy staff"
> <policy-staff@xxxxxxxxx>Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2008 12:25
> AMSubject: Re: [A2k] Open Access to the Law in the U.S. > Pranesh and
> all,
> >
> >  Yes, slasdot's articles are normally in the lead and very
> intereting.
> > This one especially.  Interesting enough, California is ICANN's
> > headquarters.  Food for thought, eh?  But than again seems like
> > maybe California and ICANN along with Google are birds of
> > feather, along with the RIAA and MPAA, eh?
> >
> >  But seriously, such a notion that a State can claim it's
> > written law is not open to free and full access by it's
> > citizens due to a copywrite claim by the state, which after
> > all ARE the people of that state, is horribly an irresponsible
> > claim.  Utter nonsense and not Constitutional.
> >
> > Pranesh Prakash wrote:
> >
> >> Dear All,
> >> >From /.
> >> http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/09/03/181251
> >>
> >> The comments, as always on Slashdot, are interesting.
> >>
> >> - Pranesh
> >>
> >> -------------
> >>
> >>  Nathan Halverson <http://www.pressdemocrat.com/> writes
> >> "California claims copyright to its laws, and warns people not to
> >> share them. And that's not sitting right with Internet gadfly, and
> >> open-access hero, Carl Malamud
> >> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Malamud>. He has spent the last
> >> couple months scanning tens of thousands of pages containing city,
> >> county and state laws  think building codes, banking laws, etc.
> >> Malamud wants California to sue him
> >>
> <http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20080903/NEWS/809030309/1350&title=Getting_access__one_document_at_a_time>,
>
> >> which is almost a given if the state wants to continue claiming
> >> copyright. He thinks a federal court will rule in his favor: It is
> >> illegal to copyright the law since people are required to know it.
> >> Malamud helped force the SEC to put corporate filings online in
> 1994,
> >> and did the same with the patent office. He got the Smithsonian to
> >> loosen its claim of copyright, CSPAN to stop forbidding people from
>
> >> sharing its videos, and most recently Oregon to quit claiming
> >> copyright on state laws."Malamud's talk at Google ("All the
> >> Government's Information"
> >> <http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2633159172413478267>) is
> also
> >> well worth watching.
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> A2k mailing list
> >> A2k@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >> http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/a2k
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 281k members/stakeholders
> strong!)
> > "Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" -
> >   Abraham Lincoln
> >
> > "Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is
> > very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt
> >
> > "If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B;
> > liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by
> > P: i.e., whether B is less than PL."
> > United States v. Carroll Towing  (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947]
> > ===============================================================
> > Updated 1/26/04
> > CSO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security IDNS.
> > div. of Information Network Eng.  INEG. INC.
> > ABA member in good standing member ID 01257402 E-Mail
> > jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > My Phone: 214-244-4827
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > A2k mailing list
> > A2k@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/a2k
> >
> >

Regards,

Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 281k members/stakeholders strong!)
"Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" -
   Abraham Lincoln

"Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is
very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt

"If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B;
liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by
P: i.e., whether B is less than PL."
United States v. Carroll Towing  (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947]
===============================================================
Updated 1/26/04
CSO/DIR. Internet Network Eng. SR. Eng. Network data security IDNS.
div. of Information Network Eng.  INEG. INC.
ABA member in good standing member ID 01257402 E-Mail
jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
My Phone: 214-244-4827