Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Don't Share That Law! It's Copyrighted

Posted by timothy on from the there-would-be-these-rules-that-everyone-knows dept.

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.

8 of 481 comments (clear)

  1. Playing With Fire by PawNtheSandman · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wouldn't keep prodding Arnold like that.

  2. Re:California Strikes Again by d34thm0nk3y · · Score: 5, Funny

    Maybe if we all pirate these laws it will reduce the financial incentive of these "artists" to create new works.

  3. We understand by davidwr · · Score: 5, Funny

    Webster copyrighted "ridiculous" and you didn't have the money to pay for a license, so you created your own word.

    The purpose of copyright is to encourage creativity. See, it works!

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  4. Lock him up! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Carl Malamud is aiding the terrists! If the laws are freely available to be known by the public, the terrists will find out and obey them to avoid being caught!

  5. Re:California Strikes Again by ZeroFactorial · · Score: 5, Funny

    We should copyright the copyright laws with billion dollar royalties for usage.

    You could violate any copyrights you want, and when they try to cite the copyright laws, BAM!

  6. Re:Not illegal by moderatorrater · · Score: 5, Funny

    Copyrights on laws may be unenforceable but they are not illegal.

    I sure am glad you popped up to split that hair. Without comments like this, where would we be?

  7. Re:California Strikes Again by memfrob · · Score: 5, Funny

    "I'm sorry, your honor, I didn't have enough money to know what laws I broke.

    "It is illegal to be poor. Off to the spice mines with you!"

    *shudder*

    --
    The Wizard utters the word 'frobnoid!' and cackles gleefully
  8. Re:California Strikes Again by vivin · · Score: 5, Funny

    That's because Chrome is built on top of vi.

    In vi :% makes you select the entire range of text, so this obviously means that you are trying to select TEH ENTIRE INTARWEB!!!111

    So Chrome runs out of memory and crashes.

    --
    Vivin Suresh Paliath
    http://vivin.net

    I like