大阪・関西万博チケット購入者の個人情報大量抜き取りに批判続出 「保護方針」改正へ
被爆80年、節目の夏に向けて「核兵器をなくす国際市民フォーラム」開催
原発事故時「屋内退避の目安は3日間」の規制委報告書案に自治体から疑問の声
山梨リニア工事差し止め控訴審、東京高裁で弁論が続行中 住民側が「対質尋問」要求
日本クルド文化協会がヘイト繰り返す渡辺賢一氏を提訴「平和的生存権の侵害許すな」
〈国際刑事裁判所(ICC)を守れ!〉宇都宮健児
清瀬市で図書館削減是非問う住民投票求め請願 市議会で否決、審議紛糾
第20回 消費者法制度のパラダイムシフトに関する専門調査会【3月31日開催】
JVN: WordPress用プラグインWelcart e-Commerceにおける信頼できないデータのデシリアライゼーションの脆弱性
JVN: センチュリー・システムズ製FutureNet NXRシリーズ、VXRシリーズおよびWXRシリーズにおける複数の脆弱性
Karrot.world on what free software can mean to self-organising and local communities
JVN: キヤノン製プロダクション/オフィス/スモールオフィス向け複合機およびレーザービームプリンターの一部のプリンタドライバにおける複数の境界外書き込みの脆弱性
サイバー先制攻撃法案、拙速審議反対!徹底審議を!
[B] ミャンマーNUG駐日代表事務所 大規模地震受け「緊急支援委員会」を設置 募金活動もスタート
EFF Urges Third Circuit to Join the Legal Chorus: No One Owns the Law
Two appeals courts have recently rejected efforts by private parties to use copyright to restrict access to the laws that most directly affect ordinary citizens: regulations that ensure our homes, workplaces, devices, and many other products, are safe and fit for purpose. Apparently hoping the third time will be the charm, a standards organization is asking the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to break ranks and hold that a private party that helps develop a law also gets to own that law. In an amicus brief filed with co-counsel Abigail Burton and Samuel Silver of Welsh & Recker, P.C., on behalf of multiple entities— including Watch Duty, iFixit, Public.Resource.Org, and multiple library associations—EFF urged the court to instead join the judicial consensus and recognize that no one owns the law.
EFF urged the court to join the judicial consensus and recognize that no one owns the law.
This case concerns UpCodes, a company that has created a database of building codes—like the National Electrical Code—that includes codes incorporated by reference into law. ASTM, a private organization that coordinated the development of some of those codes, insists that it retains copyright in them even after they have been adopted into law, and therefore has the right to control how the public accesses and shares them. Fortunately, neither the Constitution nor the Copyright Act support that theory. Faced with similar claims, some courts, including the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, have held that the codes lose copyright protection when they are incorporated into law. Others, like the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in a case EFF defended on behalf of Public.Resource.Org, have held that, whether or not the legal status of the standards changes once they are incorporated into law, making them fully accessible and usable online is a lawful fair use. A federal court in Pennsylvania followed the latter path in this case, finding that UpCodes’ database was a protected fair use.
The Third Circuit should affirm the ruling, preferably on the alternative ground that standards incorporated into law are necessarily promoted to the public domain. The internet has democratized access to law, making it easier than ever for the public —from journalists to organizers to safety professionals to ordinary concerned citizens —to understand, comment on, and share the myriad regulations that bind us. That work is particularly essential where those regulations are crafted by private parties and made mandatory by regulators with limited public oversight and increasingly limited staffing. Copyright law should not be read to impede it.
The Supreme Court has explained that “every citizen is presumed to know the law, and it needs no argument to show that all should have free access” to it. Apparently, it needs some argument after all, but it is past time for the debate to end.
Related Cases: Freeing the Law with Public.Resource.Org