

Bill to make California Code of Regulations have a creative commons license - mpweiher
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/13-14/bill/asm/ab_0251-0300/ab_292_bill_20130211_introduced.htm

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drallison
Why should the California Code of Regulations be copyright and licensed with a
creative commons license rather than just being public domain? Federal
government works cannot be copyright. State and local can; requiring a
creative commons license (open access creative commons attribution license)
presumably would ensure the broadest possible distribution.

~~~
charonn0
California law and regulation incorporate by reference[1] standards and
regulations devised and drafted by groups outside of government like the
International Code Council[2] and National Fire Protection Association[3].
This isn't bad _per se_ since these groups know better than most legislators
about the specific domain being treated (experts on structural fires writing
fire codes, e.g.)

These referenced regulations are protected by Copyrights owned not by the
legislator or government, but by the original private authors. As a
consequence, having access to these Copyrighted, commercialized, non-free
documents becomes a requirement for anyone wishing to know what the law is.

[1]: <http://tr.ansfer.me/1cim>

[2]: <http://www.iccsafe.org/>

[3]: <http://www.nfpa.org/>

~~~
_delirium
It might make sense for the state to negotiate a license for widespread free
distribution before agreeing to incorporate a document by reference.

While I support the end result of this petition, and think it's better than
the status quo, it _is_ a little weird to think that something I wrote could
automatically become public domain if the state incorporates it by reference
into a law. What if I didn't want them to? It'd be a lot cleaner if the state
acquired the rights to the document before writing it into a law.

Alternately, we could have truly public bodies, rather than quasi-public-
sphere but actually private organizations, coming up with these model
regulations.

------
rayiner
Legal documents should not be protected by copyright. Its such an absurd idea
that everyone until recently assumed they were in the public domain.

~~~
drcube
Everything the US Federal government publishes is public domain. People
erroneously believe that also applies to state and municipal governments, too.
I know I did until recently.

~~~
001sky
_publishes_

==Also, key word.

------
sfall
There is going to be a big battle with International Code Council (ICC),
National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), ANSI, I could go on and on. They
all have a vested interest on keeping their standards locked down.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
See SBCCI vs Veeck. Here, first link I could find:
[http://www.pddoc.com/copyright/Veek_vs_Southern_Bldg_Code.ht...](http://www.pddoc.com/copyright/Veek_vs_Southern_Bldg_Code.htm)

>Today the majority concludes that the presumed benefits generated through the
creation of "model codes" require that it strike the balance in favor of
permitting the model code creator to continue to enforce its copyright, even
after such a code has been adopted into law. In my view, once a "model code"
is adopted into law by the government, a private entity, such as SBCCI, may no
longer obstruct publication and transmission of the law by an uncompensated
transferor. Adoption of the model code as law serves to place the law in the
public domain and it should, therefore, be readily available for access by all
citizens. The access should not be limited to a non-public commercial
establishment. Similarly, upon enactment, the law transforms into an "idea"
that is no longer distinguishable from its expression, causing SBCCI's codes
to lose their copyright protection. It is my belief that reversal of the
district court judgment is appropriate. I respectfully dissent from the
decision of the majority.

edit: later noticed btilly's link to SBCCI vs Veeck
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5214449> at
<http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/293_F3d_791.htm>

~~~
sfall
I think thats why they may try and fight it. I don't know of any other state
that the entire code published

------
csense
An organization called resource.org, discussed on HN [1] [2] has been
purchasing and publishing standards and other documents that are parts of
laws.

I haven't heard of them being sued yet, although they're prepared for it; that
may change soon [4] [5].

The actual releases are available at [3].

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5025381>

[2] [http://boingboing.net/2012/03/19/liberating-americas-
secret....](http://boingboing.net/2012/03/19/liberating-americas-secret.html)

[3] <https://law.resource.org/pub/12tables.html>

[4] <https://law.resource.org/pub/table12.html>

[5] PDF link
[https://law.resource.org/images/rfcs/smaccna.20130205.from.p...](https://law.resource.org/images/rfcs/smaccna.20130205.from.pdf)

------
ebranson
I am glad Malamud finally published the CCR.[1] I tried to get him to do it
years ago, but instead he accused me of trying to give him legal advice... I
am glad he reconsidered his position! GOOD JOB MALAMUD!

1\. The OAL/WestLaw online CCR is a damn-near-worthless piece of crap. Want to
grab a soda in between reading regulations? Nope. Your javascript-required
session just timed out and none of your links work anymore. Go back to square
one.

2\. The OAL Director(s) that allowed it to happen should not have quit. They
should not have been fired. They should have been impeached and banned from
public office for life. Yes, it is their fault, and yes, it is that bad.
(Almost as bad as the lawsuit to get the California LC law database!)

3\. I think this is a good move. It removes the question mark over
distribution of what is THE LAW (tm).

4\. It should be a CC PD license silly Assemblyman! Tricks are for kids!

5\. See my efforts to convert the current $2,000 CCR files to RDF.[2]

Yes, the code is crap. Yes, it only outputs XML ATM and not RDF. But let me
tell you, getting and scraping $2,000 CD-ROM from undocumented RTF using their
proprietary Windows program (which you have to find separately somehow) and
py3k into a standardized vocabulary/ontology is a bitch. I have also been
doing California law, federal law, and federal regulations, and a common cat-
like tool for grep-ing all of the above. (With RDF it will be easier to use
SPARQL to search the law.)

6\. FUCK YOU OAL. You should have done this in the first place. This was YOUR
job! How many MILLIONS would you have demanded to do what I did for free?[3]
This isn't a fucking monkey in space, its THE LAW(tm). Pull your head out of
your corporate sponsor's ass and do your fucking job. No excuses.

[1] <https://law.resource.org/pub/us/ccr/>

[2] [http://gaia.ecs.csus.edu/~bransone/opengovernment/scrape-
ccr...](http://gaia.ecs.csus.edu/~bransone/opengovernment/scrape-ccr.py)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Court_Case_Manageme...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Court_Case_Management_System)

~~~
ebranson
And just a follow-up. Malamud sees our conversation differently.

1\. He does not like my characterization of our conversation. (It is hard to
tell how much he doesn't like it, but I get the feeling he thinks it is
extremely offensive.) But that is how I felt the conversation went. I try and
convince him to put up text or even RTF versions, and I get back a response
about legal analysis and legal representation. And that's how our conversation
ended. This last conversation ended only slightly worse.

2\. It appears he doesn't like my choice of language, or my form.
Understandable, but all the words I have chosen are in the dictionary, and
they are not in the dictionary because the Queen of England wanted them to be.
They have function and purpose, and I believe their usage is valid to show
extreme displeasure (towards a government institution and its directors) on an
extremely important issue. This is how I feel, and I want others that feel the
same way to know they are not alone. Hacker News can censor me, but I will not
censor myself.

3\. I'm not "grandstanding". I really don't care about recognition for my
work. I doubt saying "fuck you" in a post is going to earn me much praise or
impress anyone positively. My code sure won't. What I want is for anyone to be
able to run (Geo)SPARQL queries against the law--damn the consequences. I
would actually prefer to assign my copyright on my code to someone that can
really put it to use. But I just don't see that happening anytime soon. (They
were on the web for years under a CC0 license--no one cared.) I guess I could
get a .org and make a snazy looking website and post it here and have no one
care, but I would rather just put up a SPARQL endpoint and have no one care,
or have someone else do it--like the government.

4\. He published the CCR in 2008. But I must point out the same thing I have
been trying to point out to him for years, and the subject of my post: HTML
(or even RTF) is not the same thing as PDF scans. There is no Python library
for that. I cannot derive RDF from them. I cannot search them in any robust
way. For example, they will not show up in Google results. I think all these
other issues are detracting from this: people should be able to grok the law.
Easily. We can call China from anywhere in the world on the cheap, we can do
all sorts of crazy things, but not grok the law.

That deserves a little vulgar language.

------
sp332
It just says, in all-lowercase, "an open access creative commons attribution
license". Does that mean they have to pick one of those licenses later? Why
not specify Attribution 3.0 United States?

~~~
dragonwriter
Yes, it means that the actual entity doing the releasing has to pick one. The
reason not to specify the particular license in statute is so that the
particular license (within the parameters set in the legislation) selected can
be changed in the future without requiring new legislation.

