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City Laws Only Available Via $200 License
MrLint writes "The City of Schenectady has decided that their laws are copyrighted, and that you cannot know them without paying for an 'exclusive license' for $200. This is not a first — Oregon has claimed publishing of laws online is a copyright violation." This case is nuanced. The city has contracted with a private company to convert and encode its laws so they can be made available on the Web for free. While the company works on this project, it considers the electronic versions of the laws its property and offers a CD version, bundled with its software, for $200. The man who requested a copy of the laws plans to appeal.
As I was reading TFA there was another thing I saw that outraiged me besides the ludicrous copyrighting of laws.
Why does a city's laws and codes have to be two fat binders? Perhaps I'm making a wrong assumption (or just have my head up my ass; I'm on my first cup of coffee this morning), but a thick binder where I work is about four inches thick.
Why so many codes and regulations? And not only does one have to obey these laws, but there are the state and Federal laws you have to abide by as well.
How the hell is anyone supposed to avoid being a criminal when there are books and books of laws one has to obey?
I'd like to see a new federal law that says all laws, codes, and ordinances expire after a period of ten years, after which time lawmakers can re-enact those laws if they deem necessary. We have WAY too many laws.
And I'd like to see the next copyright revision state plainly and emphatically that no government can copyright anything whatever.
Someone please violate this city's bogus copyright and get the laws on the internet. And publically shame the city and its leaders for their insanity. I know if I lived in Schenectady I'd be voting against the incumbants (of course, I usually do here anyway).
Free Martian Whores!
In my experience the "ignorance of the law is no excuse" standpoint holds up whether or not you have a good excuse for your ignorance. The police once copied down my address incorrectly on a ticket (they ignored my correct address on the copy of the ticket I mailed in) causing a summons to court, a notice of default judgement against me, a notice that my ticket was unpaid and a notice that my license had been suspended to be sent to the wrong address. I was later charged with driving with a suspended license after an accident a few months later. I discovered what had happened after some digging at the bureau of public records. I explained what had happened to the judge and he told me the ignorance of the law is ones own fault period. The fact that the state had tried to contact me was sufficient on their part. It is always your responsibility to become informed of the law regardless of any difficulties you have.
The company that's typing up these laws got sucked into a bad deal. They probably signed a contract believing they would hold a copyright over the laws. Bullshit. At most, that company has a copyright over the CD version that they're creating.
The laws themselves are public domain, as laws must be. To claim anything else renders the City of Schenectady illegitimate. Seriously--you can't make asinine claims like that and expect to remain a legitimate form of government. If I were working for the State or a neighboring local government, I'd give Schenectady a few weeks to come to their senses and then pull the plug. No more funding, no more cooperation, no nothing. Treat them like a rogue state. It's harsh but necessary. No one should have to stand for government gone haywire.
Judge was an idiot. Ignorance of the _law_ is no excuse. Ignorance of specific FACTS often is; ignorance of the law in your case would be if you knew your license was suspended but you didn't know that driving with a suspended license was illegal.
In this case, the courts will (as usual) rule for the government. On two grounds
1) You can always head down to the state capital and examine the laws in their law library, on paper.
2) States have long been incorporating copyrighted codes into their laws by reference, and the courts have been perfectly happy to let them do it. Want to add an electrical outlet? That'll be $$$$ for the NEC, please.
The more interesting case will be if some enterprising person buys the $200 CD, strips the laws themselves out of it (minus any formatting or commentary by the publishing company), and posts them or starts selling his own CD.
Your example about the number of people we have in prison isn't related to this topic. A large number of them are in prison for non-violent drug offenses-something they knew was illegal. I don't believe our war on drugs is really about drugs, it's about making minorities criminals.
I think you've touched on something, but not the full grasp of the situation. I think the higher percentage of minorities being in prison is due to their lack of resources to acquire a proper defense. But disregard the makeup of our prison population and look only at the sheer number of prisoners, and it seems to me to be a new form of bringing back slavery, with corporate run prisons being the new plantation owners. These corporations are charging a fee to the states they house prisoners for and that fee will cover the operating costs as well as a profit. Now add in labor costs they can earn from selling the use of the prisoners for or manufacturing they do within the walls of the prison constructing products. More profit.
So now we have another new, large, powerful, deep pocketed lobbying group pushing for harsher laws and stiffer penalties to grow the population of these new slaves, to the point of one day we will either be a prisoner or a prison guard.
Being a spelling & grammar Nazi is a sign you do not poses the intelligence to contribute to the conversation