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Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Ind. Law - Still more on: Indiana building codes, part of the Indiana Administrative Code, are not available online [Corrected]

Yesterday the ILB posted this entry about how a fellow named Carl Malamud was making available online the building codes for all 50 states, including the until-now-totally-unavailable International Building Codes which form about 95% of each state code. Mr. Malamud is one of the founders of Public.Resource.Org, a nonprofit group seeking to open public access to government records, according to a 2007 NYT article, which also reports:

His motivation is to make the workings of the government more accessible at no cost: “This is society’s operating system,” he said.

Well, come to find out that Mr. Malamud received an MBA from IU-Bloomington. While there he had some classes with two students who are now well known in Indiana circles, Indiana Insight publisher Ed Feigenbaum, and Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter, both of whom were pursuing joint JD/MBA degrees. In answer to my questions, Ed writes:

Steve and I started the JD part in 1979, the MBA part in 1980, and we received both degrees in 1982. I believe that Carl started the MBA program in 1980 and received his MBA in 1982. In the core MBA courses, they assigned us to groups of four or five for group projects, and I was fortunate to have been stuck in with genius Carl, who was our go-to guy for all the quantitative stuff.

[Clarification from Mr. Malamud, added 9/6/08: "I was actually in the doctoral program in the business school, but started working for the computer center and dropped out ... they gave me an MBA as a consolation prize."]

This serves as a prelude to this long and fascinating article today in the Santa Rosa CA Press Democrat, reported by Nathan Halverson. Some quotes:
California's building codes, plumbing standards and criminal laws can be found online.

But if you want to download and save those laws to your computer, forget it.

The state claims copyright to those laws. It dictates how you can access and distribute them -- and therefore how much you'll have to pay for print or digital copies.

It forbids people from storing or distributing its laws without consent.

That doesn't sit well with Carl Malamud, a Sebastopol resident with an impressive track record of pushing for digital access to public information. He wants California -- and every other federal, state and local agency -- to drop their copyright claims on law, contending it will pave the way for innovators to create new ways of searching and presenting laws.

"When it comes to the law, the courts have always said there can be no copyright because people are obligated to know what it says," Malamud said. "Ignorance of the law is no excuse in court."

Malamud is spoiling for a major legal fight.

He has begun publishing copies of federal, state and county codes online -- in direct violation of claimed copyright.

On Labor Day, he posted the entire 38-volume California Code of Regulations, which includes all of the state's regulations from health care and insurance to motor vehicles and investment.

To purchase a digital copy of the California code costs $1,556, or $2,315 for a printed version. The state generates about $880,000 annually by selling its laws, according to the California Office of Administrative Law.

Malamud isn't just targeting California. He posted safety and building codes for nearly all 50 states, and some counties and cities such as Sonoma County and Los Angeles.

And that is just the start of the article.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 3, 2008 01:08 PM
Posted to Indiana Law