We’re sorry, but you can’t download the law, it’s copyrighted
Written by admin on September 5th, 2008 in Gadgets and Devices.
Sometimes the government just don’t make any sense to the average citizen. This is a prime example of the government being against the common people, and this affects everyone in California along with many other states. If you wanted to actually read the public laws that you are bound by, more than likely you’ll have to purchase them at a book store.
Why? Because the “public” laws of California are copyrighted, and lots of money is made by selling the law. You can read laws online for free, if the department in charge has taken the time to put them there, and if they have taken the time to format them to actually be searched for and found. But you can’t print them nor save them for viewing later, you will always have to return to the website if you don’t want to commit a crime. And if you wanted to try and make the laws available for the general populace to read and download online like our good friend Carl Malamud has been doing, then you might run into some problems. If “ignorance of the law is no excuse,” then how does it make any sense that we have to pay money to fulfill our obligation to be informed.
California’s response to the issue of public information being copyrighted? You’re going to love this:
“We exercise our copyright to benefit the people of California,” said Linda Brown, deputy director of the Office of Administrative Law, which manages the state’s laws. “We are obtaining compensation for the people of California.”
Does your brain hurt yet? The entity that taxes us and charges us for copies of public laws, is generating compensation for us. Right. I sincerely hope this goes to court and that Mr. Malamud wins, partly so that we will be able to save or distribute public laws with no fear of penalty, but mostly because if he wins, some sanity will be returned to the world.
Found at Techdirt, original story at Pressdemocrat
Tags: electronic toys, M4A, mobiles, dvr
