
Carl Malamud’s Lawsuit-Fighting Kickstarter to Put Public Standards Online - tmoretti
http://nextcity.org/sharedcity/entry/carl-malamuds-lawsuit-fighting-kickstarter-campaign-to-put-public-standards
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thinkcomp
The docket for the lawsuit Carl is fighting can be found here:

[http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=2506677](http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=2506677)

Appropriately, PlainSite uses a lot of materials that Carl helped make
possible (including Aaron Swartz's initial PACER data dump, which he still
hosts).

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sfall
I am really torn on this lawsuit. I work with NFPA standards. Currently many
standards are available online for free on the nfpa website.

The issue with this being a completely free publication is how would we
maintain the development? The people who sit on the committees already
volunteer their time.

NFPA still has to maintain the documents, handle grant application, research,
publications, free resources (like fire safety month). Would they be able to
solicit enough donations to handle even their core duties. Large companies
could handle it but how many copies are sold to firms that would prefer not to
spend anything on it?

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r0h1n
It would be great if you could add some context for readers who don't know
about NFPA, or about how the US standards system currently works. Otherwise
I'm (from India) having a hard time trying to figure out why public works
standards would ever need to be monetized/paywalled/copyrighted?

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reginaldjcooper
Starting halfway through the article:

"To the SDOs [standards development organizations], the system works rather
well. They take on the burden of developing standards, an obligation that in
many other countries falls on government. They convene experts and build
systems for collating and distributing these standards. They even offer
limited free access... [Malamud] argues, the effect of these standards is felt
on the ground each and every day, as well as in the pocketbooks of local
governments. In a video posted by Malamud, the head building inspector for
Sonoma County, Calif. testifies that the country spends about $30,000 during a
code cycle buying copies of building code for staff."

Everything the government uses as a standard should be _freely_ available to
the public in a machine readable format. By selling standards to the
government I assert the SDO's should be required to forfeit their copyright.
But that will never happen; it's the same bullshit as with PACER and court
documents, some asshole has found a way to rent-seek on publicly owned IP and
the system allows it because few people care out loud.

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briancpotter
In fact, court rulings have upheld that once a standard becomes a law, the
SDOs DO forfeit their copyright. "The law can't be copyrighted" has legal
precedent dating back to the 1800's, and was most recently upheld
(specifically with respect to building codes) in the vase of Veeck vs. SBCCI:

[http://www.studentweb.law.ttu.edu/cochran/Cases%20&%20Readin...](http://www.studentweb.law.ttu.edu/cochran/Cases%20&%20Readings/Copyright-
UNT/veeck.htm)

That's why Malamud hasn't been sued by the ICC, even though he makes their
primary publications (The International Building Code, which every state uses
some flavor of) freely available.

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ChuckMcM
This stuff is well worth supporting. It annoys the heck out of me when IEEE
and ANSI hold standards hostage.

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Fuxy
He's setting himself up for failure everybody agrees with the fact that all
public standards should be available on the internet however very few people
are willing to pay for that to happen.

We kind of think it's the government's duty to release and make public on the
internet as well as everywhere else these standards without us having to spend
our hard earned money on it.

That's what we pay taxes for.

