Court Says Carl Malamud Can Keep Freeing The Law
We’ve written a bunch about
Carl Malamud, who has devoted so much of his time and energy towards freeing the law. While that may
sound ridiculous that the law needs to be “freed,” Malamud noticed, before most others, different forces that were looking to lock up (and often from) the actual text of the laws. And Carl, rightly, believes that everyone should be able to read the law freely, otherwise how can people be expected to know what’s legal and what’s not?
For his troubles, Carl has been sued in a few big (and important) cases. I’ve seen people “congratulate” Carl on getting sued for his efforts to publish the law, thinking that this is what he wants — but it’s not. I’ve spoken to him about this multiple times, and he just wants the law to be free, not to have to go through the pain and hassle of a lawsuit. Yet, when those who seek to lock up the law come after him, Carl is willing to fight back. A few years ago, he
freed the laws of Georgia from a stupidly convoluted setup, in which the state partnered with a private company to lock up the “official” code of Georgia.
But one of Carl’s biggest projects is getting people to recognize the problems when lawmakers incorporate some sort of standard into the law where the official standard is then locked up behind (often expensive) paywalls. There are standards-making bodies out there that insist that this is the only way that they can afford to keep the standards going, by making money selling copies of it. And while some may be sympathetic to that argument, it’s no excuse for hiding standards that are required by law. If lawmakers are saying that you have to meet a standard to be in compliance with the law, then the standards
must be freely available.
Plaintiffs’ evidence falls well short of showing some meaningful likelihood of future harm. Plaintiffs begin with the premise that Defendant’s postings are “unrestricted” and “widely viewed,” and conclude that “[t]his means its users include those individuals and entities who would otherwise purchase or license copies of Plaintiffs standards.” See Pls.’ 2d MSJ at 27. But Plaintiffs’ evidentiary support for this proposition is meager: correspondence from an engineer asking Defendant if the Circuit’s decision in ASTM I meant Defendant could “update the site,” Wise Decl. ¶ 174, Ex. 173 at PRO_00267293,
We’ve written a bunch about Carl Malamud, who has devoted so much of his time and energy towards freeing the law. While that may sound ridiculous that the law needs to be “freed,”…
www.techdirt.com
good job Carl
