Comments on: Oregon Law: owned by The Man.

By: It’s our turn: tech tools for government « Our new mind

It’s our turn: tech tools for government « Our new mind — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 05:53:39 +0000

[...] the agencies that produce them. Readers of this blog may recognize this concept, as it ties in with what we accomplished with the Oregon Legislative Counsel Committee last [...]

By: Oregon’s Legislative Counsel Committee recalls copyright « WikiProject Oregon

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 05:37:00 +0000

[...] advocacy, collaboration | Tags: copyleft, government, legislature | Last Thursday, as you may have heard, the Oregon Legislative Counsel Committee (LCC) held a public hearing on its policy of [...]

By: We are intelligent because we are social « Our new mind

We are intelligent because we are social « Our new mind — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 22:42:20 +0000

[...] I wasn’t selected this time — what with the Oregon Revised Statutes issue I got embroiled in, I don’t know where I would have found the time to get a presentation [...]

By: Pete Forsyth

Pete Forsyth — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 05:41:37 +0000

Thanks Mom! Yes, I’d say this was pretty much an unqualified success.

I was very excited by the people who chose to testify — PSU professor and open source leader Bart Massey, and Amy Sample Ward, a mover and shaker who has brought us the Chalkboard Project and Connec+ipedia.

The team from Justia and Public.Resource.Org made an excellent presentation, and all the legislators in attendance showed genuine interest and asked tough questions. In the end, they voted unanimously to not defend the copyright claims over the Oregon Revised Statutes.

Watch here for a more extensive wrapup in the next few days, with audio and/or video of the hearing. Thanks everybody for your excellent comments — they were very helpful in getting my testimony prepared!

By: Martha

Martha — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:20:07 +0000

Headline-report from this morning’s hearing can be found at http://onward.justia.com/ – where Tim Stanley says (in part): “After taking legal counsel from Dexter Johnson, talking with Karl Olson, Carl Malamud, three Oregon citizens and myself, they unanimously voted to place the Oregon Revised Statutes into the public domain”

Way to go!

By: Kari Chisholm

Kari Chisholm — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:41:13 +0000

Which, btw, leaves only one question: Should the creative commons license be restricted to only those who motives are not-for-profit? Or should the state continue to charge pricey licensing fees to for-profit entities? (And what constitutes “for profit”? If I put it all on a website, and then just run some ads next to it to pay for server space, is that for-profit?)

By: Kari Chisholm

Kari Chisholm — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:39:53 +0000

Maybe the $1 license idea does the trick without the onerous $30,000 fee Oregon reportedly charges the big legal publishing houses for the electronic version.

Or better yet, the creative commons license. Even a $1 fee creates bureaucratic procedure – while the creative commons license basically allows anyone to use it; but if anyone violates it, the state would have recourse.

It sounds as if everyone here (despite where we’ve started) is coming ’round to the same idea… the state should retain some form of ownership, but allow anyone to republish it and annotate it, provided they replicate the content exactly.

By: Jim Edmunson

Jim Edmunson — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:12:44 +0000

Fair enough. But not a straw man argument either, just a scenario if we were to let the publishing world (electronic and print) fashion its own version of the state laws. The point is that public control is public oversight, and oversight is to protect the public, not hinder its access. Maybe the $1 license idea does the trick without the onerous $30,000 fee Oregon reportedly charges the big legal publishing houses for the electronic version. That is economic exclusivity for all but the corporate rich.

And yes, the reality today is that no lawyer licensed in Oregon is affected by this in any substantial sense. We have access through the Oregon State Bar to a great database (Casemaker) that not only includes ORS but federal and state court cases, administrative rules and decisions, and collections from other states. Plus, with a little digging, most if not all of that data is on state and federal web sites at no cost and with search functions.

The big publishing houses selling leather bound libraries at ransom prices — once dominant and unavoidable to even a solo practioner — are endangered species in the legal world. Thank you internet.

By: Pete Forsyth

Pete Forsyth — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 07:34:32 +0000

I’m glad to see the debate alive and well. Just one question at the moment, as trying to get rested for tomorrow — Jim, it seems to me that you’re looking at this as an “either/or” situation, when nobody is proposing that it should be. I think we’re all in agreement, that it’s important for the State to maintain a reasonably accurate version of the law online (though attorneys tell me that even ORS has its occasional inaccuracies!)

I also think we’d all agree that in serious disputes, it would be a pretty negligent attorney who relied on a third party’s version of the law, rather than going straight to the source.

But the sort of negative scenario you bring up, it seems to me, could only arise if the State stopped publishing ORS online, or if attorneys started using an inferior source of their own volition.

So isn’t your argument a bit of a straw man?

By: Kari Chisholm

Kari Chisholm — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 06:24:21 +0000

Fair enough, Jim. Which leads us back to my earlier suggestion – which I think you agree with…

What if the ORS was just released with a creative commons license, or some variation thereof? Wouldn’t that accomplish what both sides want to accomplish?

The state would have recourse against bad actors, while the good people of the internet would have the right to republish and annotate the text…

Seems like a win-win to me. If they did that, would it be an acceptable endpoint?