Hacker News Reader

Comment by mankash666 | Hacker News Reader

As a California taxpayer funding the UC system, I'd like to be able to access the new content. At the very least my California ID should be accepted as authentication for access

View on HN

Ironically, it appears to be the laws specific to California that are putting Berkeley in a bind. In other states, they'd be able to cite administrative burden and tell the complainants to pound sand. But CA has a well-intentioned but terribly-used law that would still allow users to claim discrimination and force Berkeley to cut them a check for damages.

It is unfortunate that Berkeley couldn't transfer ownership of the archive to an institution located in a different jurisdiction.

The ultimate solution would appear to require a legislative change in CA, though, so perhaps by pulling everything down and creating some public concern, they are doing the right thing in the long run.

Good luck if you live in CA getting the law changed...

Release to public domain would solve it.

A surprisingly small amount of research comes out of state funding vs things like federal grants.

We're talking access to course material and the like, largely funded by the state. I'm personally not opposed to restricting access, but as a resident of CA directly funding the UC system, I should be able to view the digitized course material, specially in an era of almost zero-cost distribution methods like YouTube.

39% of core operations are funded by the state.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_California_fin...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com