Don't Share That Law! It's Copyrighted

Nathan Halverson 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. 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, 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") is also well worth watching.

Comments

Re:Wasting his time?

[Malevolyn]

...other people won't be intimidated by this bullshit...

I must have missed something. People are intimidated?

Re:Baffling

[geekoid]

"So, it comes as no surprise that government wants to hide laws from the people."

Shame that's not what's happening here, Jackass.
That's right, commenting on something you didn't bother to read or understand makes you a jackass.

I noticed your sig says nothing about being modded down.