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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.
I wonder how the 'ignorance of the law is no excuse' standpoint would be upheld given that you may not be economically able to know the laws...
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
..no longer own our government. Time for that city's citizens to fire all the politicians (hopefully peacefully not by force), and rebuild the government from scratch
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Ignorance of law is not a defense in a court of law, yet people are subject to laws they cannot read in detail. Doesn't seem very nuanced. It seems a very straightforward violation of basic principles of civics.
Think of the lawyers!
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. - Yogi Berra
Any law which does not offer universal access to those claimed to be subject to it should not have universal jurisdiction over said population. A very simple quid pro quo. If you have to pay to know the law, it only can be applied to those who paid :).
Aren't works for hire generally owned by whoever is paying... City pays contractor for work, city owns the work, not the contractor.
"I'm a Genius!"*
*Not an actual Genius
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!
Do people on a jury have to pay $200 as well? As it can be real hard to be on a jury and not know the law.
TFA reports that the code is available in multiple public locations. The citizen can make copies of the ordinances from those sources.
That the city code is a twisted mess is no big surprise. A lot of municipalities have that problem.
The assertion of copyright is stupid, just stupid. The morons will soon realize that they have to retreat from that lunatic undemocratic position or they will be sued under New York's FOIA.
First off, since these are state and local laws, the objection that "government works are in the public domain" doesn't apply, as that objection is only valid for federal works.
I don't know where people get the idea that "the government" equals only the Federal government. Your state and city have governments, too.
I hear it all the time in the bar I go to when people bitch about "the government", blaming Obama and Durbin etc for stupid state laws and city ordinances that the feds don't have anything to do with. The smoking ban comes to mind, boy that one pissed off the bar owners here!
You have more than one government. Where I live I have a Federal governmant, a state govenment, a county government, and a city government. Luckily here the county laws usually don't apply in the city. And there's more than one city in the city and there are no markers showing where Springfield ends and Grandview or Jerome begins.
Free Martian Whores!
Or should I say is pretty much dead.
Old resident here (I lived in Rotterdam, a town in Schenectady).
Schenectady was a booming place many years ago (~30) due to ALCO (American Locomotive) and GE (General Electric) being major companies that not only paid a lot in taxes but also brought other businesses to the area.
Downtown Schenectady, while small, was always alive with shops, stores, etc. Heck, my favorite as a child was a small two story hardware store that had one of those old school ceiling mounted "trolly" systems for moving orders/payments around the building. It was fun as a child to watch it zoom around.
Not anymore however. Schenectady decided it would be a great idea to raise taxes and grab more cash. GE and I'm assuming ALCO (can't remember when they pulled out) both decided taxes were too high and they pulled most of their operations out of Schenectady. This has pretty much killed the local economy as all the other small businesses that relied on the employee (residents and commuters) patronage have closed up shop. Schenectady shot itself in the foot really bad.
The article seems to state this is a temporary situation as they are paying $20k to get this on the web for everyone (assuming for free). But at first glance it looked like a misguided cash grab. Maybe it is, I'm not sure. Will be interesting to see how quickly they get a free version out there, if the web version does indeed end up being free. If not, *sigh*, Schenectady will be doing something stupid, again, to make a buck.
In this case the majority of people in the room when this was decided were that kind of people.
Give it a little bit and their asses are gonna be toast in court and they're going to realize that they can't rule over the city folk like dictators. Unfortunately they will never realize the real magnitude of their stupidity.
Liberty.
Welcome to government, where you don't have to be responsible for your own mistakes, because you make the rules.
The judge sounds like an idiot, and probably is. Does he realize what kind of funding the state's DMV would need if every state resident took him seriously, and contacted the DMV four or more times a year to make sure his/her license hasn't been suspended and to check that they don't have any outstanding tickets? And how much economic damage that might cause the state because of lost work?
Here's what the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has said about Schenectady's brain-dead legal position:
"For these reasons, we reject SBCCI's deconstruction of Banks into merely utilitarian and factual issues. Instead, we read Banks, Wheaton, and related cases consistently to enunciate the principle that "the law," whether it has its source in judicial opinions or statutes, ordinances or regulations, is not subject to federal copyright law."
Veeck v. Southern Bldg. Code Congress Intern., Inc.
293 F.3d 791
C.A.5 (Tex.),2002
Why so many codes and regulations?
The short answer is that the society we live in is very complicated. The basic principles are pretty simple but hammering out the details requires a lot of lawmaking. These laws cover the corner cases of how we are to interact with each other. Turns out the best (and probably only) way to do that anyone has come up with is to have a lot of laws. This is better than the alternative which is basically monarchy. Better to have the rules spelled out (even if complicated) than to depend on the capricious whims of rules. (yes, yes, I know it's hard to tell the difference sometimes...)
Bear in mind too that those laws are just the regulations, codes, ordinances etc passed by legislative bodies. There is another set of relevant law found in case law.
How the hell is anyone supposed to avoid being a criminal when there are books and books of laws one has to obey?
You aren't. A government that cannot accuse you of breaking any laws cannot control you.
The headline states that the laws are only available via a $200 license, but that is not the case. The laws currently exist in two forms, a paper version and an electronic version that is stored in a proprietary format. The paper copy is held in multiple 3-ring binders and would cost $656 to reproduce, and in order to read the proprietary electronic format you would need to license the software required for $200. No one ever said the laws themselves were copyrighted. They are also available to view for free in multiple public locations, "White said copies of the code, with updates early this year, are on file at the Schenectady Public Library, Schenectady County Supreme Court Library, the Schenectady County Community College Library and several other locations."
So you can see that no one is preventing anyone from viewing the laws, the problem is if you want your own personal copy it just isn't financially feasible at this time. Luckily the city realizes this and they're working to get a copy of the code online, which will be accessible for free. It shouldn't be this difficult to view city laws electronically so searching is simpler, and this is a good example of why we shouldn't use proprietary formats. Although your content is owned by you, you're limited to what you can do with it because of the format it's in.
Dear City Council of Schenectady
I would like to recommend to you an interesting article.
The subject is a result of my study "Location, timer settings and defusing codes of explosive devices located in various public buildings of the City of Schenectady".
I'm convinced you would be very interested in the information contained therein. I am willing to sell you a copy of said article, but considering its literary and informational value, I estimate it to be worth $10mln.
Simultaneously I would like to state I have no connection with manufacturers of these devices nor people who planted them. This is merely an scientific work of an informative study that should be of interest to all citizens of the city.
Faithfully, yours, ...
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Our justice system is built on the premise that it is better to let 10 guilty people go free than to punish one innocent person.
So, something like 9% of prisoners in jail being innocent is a good target? I believe the quote you were referring to was actually:
Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer
- English jurist William Blackstone, from a UCLA page
Which is stupid. There should be no innocent people in jail. Period. People spend their lives in prison for crimes they didn't commit, because the legal system is mass producing justice. It's not good.
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
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.
Though it sounds like you were treated unfairly, this is not a true example of the "ignorance of the law" principle in operation. (As a side note, the IRS lost a similar case a few years ago. The court did not buy the argument that they had informed the citizen by sending notices to the wrong address.)
Despite what know-it-alls say, the "ignorance of the law" principle is not absolute. It is a compromise which favors the state against the citizen. In most cases the citizen is assumed to know about any law which has been properly published. Without it, those who wanted to break the law would deliberately avoid learning about it. With it, citizens can be victimized when they are punished for violating laws about which they might not have known. This is considered a necessary trade-off in order to preserve the state's ability to punish the truly guilty.
There is controversy about when ignorance of the law becomes an excluse. The state's case is strongest when the citizen is engaged in an activity which is far outside the scope of what normal people do, such as if he is operating a nuclear power plant. It is expected that he will know that special laws will apply and will perform the necessary research.
Factors which weaken the government's case: the citizen is engaged in an ordinary activity, the law is new, the citizen can show that he made a good faith effort to learn about the law (especially if a government official mis-informed him), access to the text of the law is obstructed.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/11/13/1310212/City-Laws-Only-Available-Via-200-License?art_pos=1#
If I am operating a nuclear power plant, it is reasonable for me to pay $200 for access to the thousands of pages of laws and regulations involved. If I am planting a shrub in my front yard, it is not reasonable to pay $200 for a copy of the city ordinances on CD. At a time when electronic publication is replacing display in public buildings, it is reasonable to ask whether artificial barriers to access, such as high fees, impair the right of cities to enforce their laws.
"There's no point in acting all surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display in your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for fifty of your Earth years, so you've had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaints and it's far too late to start making a fuss about it now."
Guess we should have regularly checked with city hall...
Two more minor points:
1) its not the LAW that is being held under copyright, it is the software on the CD-ROM that is under copyright. AGAIN, the law is freely available in book form at the library and city hall (sections of which can be taken home for the price of photocopying, or just take your digital camera/cellphone and shoot copies of the pages) - They are not copyrighted, and TFA does not claim that they are.
2) the title is alarmist, and currently reads: "City Laws Only Available Via $200 License"
to make it even remotely accurate, it should read: "City Laws Only Available Via $200 License, If purchased on CD ROM - but will be free on the web, soon".
Politics will sooner or later make fools of everybody... - Dick Armey
The headline and TFS both state that the code is only available to citizens for a $200 license. This is not true. RTFA.
This is a case of a company trying to weasle a buck and a city government not thinking through the options that might best serve a citizen. There was a fair amount of stupidity involved in the manner of refusing the FOI request, but that's about it.
The law is available for anyone to review - just not to take home their own copy without considerable expense. It will be available online for free in the near future, and where this guy ran into trouble is he specifically asked for a more convenient form of the information than the city is presently in a position to provide without more creativity than they exercise by defualt.
Bottom line - the city officials should get better educated, and it sounds like they're doing just that as they consider options to fill this request; in other words, business as usual, nothing to see here.
Completely agree. I was first frustrated and upset with what I read, because we the people cannot permit government to hide our laws from us. That's exactly what the summary implied. But when I RTFA, I read exactly what the parent said...the laws are available for reading at THE PUBLIC LIBRARY, as they should be.
The guy can just go to the library, research things the old-fashioned way, pay for making photocopies, and wait for this company to finish the project they were contracted to do.
This case is NOT nuanced. Only the lawyers for the company that stands to make a buck want folks to think that. Did the printing company that, in olden days, typeset, print, and bind the laws in paper copies expect to profit from an exclusive license? No, they expected to get paid to do the printing and hand over the copies to the government. Possibly they could print up additional copies and sell them but they didn't expect to have any rights to the content.
The Oregon situation isn't this eggregious. Oregon does not charge for access to the state laws, in fact, the state has had them online for years, persuant to the Oregon Sunshine Act of 1973
Furries make the internet go.
Anyone know the rule on building codes for this? My town has adopted a version of the International Building Codes. I've found places to buy it online, but no free version. It seems ludicrous to me that I have to pay money to find out how to follow the codes.
Heh... I honestly like the first go at that sort of spiel better...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
cpghost at Cordula's Web.