No One Can Own the Law–So Why Is Congress Extending Copyright to It? | Hacker News Reader

No One Can Own the Law–So Why Is Congress Extending Copyright to It?

arl.org

25 pointshn_acker9 comments

I changed the title because it was too long. The original title is

> No One Can Own the Law—So Why Is Congress Advancing a Bill to Extend Copyright to It?

The bill in question is H.R.1631 - Pro Codes Act [1]. The corresponding bill in the Senate is S.835 [2]. An excerpt from the official bill summary [1]:

> Under this bill, a technical standard shall retain its copyright protection even if it has been incorporated by reference into a law or regulation, if the applicable standards development organization makes the standard available on a free publicly accessible online source.

> If a party asserts that an incorporated technical standard has lost its copyright protection because it has not been made available for free online, the party making that assertion shall bear the burden of proof.

[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/1631

[2] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/835

Wait, are building codes currently not copyrighted? Then why is it currently so hard to get a copy of them? My city (Chicago) basically has codes that say "NFPA NEC 2020 code, but you can't do any of this stuff, and need to do this extra stuff". Getting the referenced NEC code is a total PITA, same for the IBC (International Building Codes).

If they aren't copyrighted at the moment, could I freely distribute PDFs of them if I were to get them (maybe remove trademarks or whatever)?

Edit: I guess the crux of the issue is that when the laws do say "NEC 2020 but X", implicitly that referenced code is kinda public domain because the law itself needs to be?

I get that the standards organizations need to get money to do the testing to know that (e.g.) every permutation of wires with different insulation stuffed into a conduit of such a length is safe even if someone insulates around it yadda yadda, which can then get flattened to an actual useful code because electricians or inspectors don't want gigantic tables with every type of wire and their permutations and individual loads for them...they just want an easy way to figure out fill factor.

How should they get paid? I dunno. Royalties from municipalities that use them? $X per hour per inspector that's checking against whatever code (NEC, IBC...)? $Y per square foot per inspection?

You can use NFPA's crappy "free access" https://www.nfpa.org/For-Professionals/Codes-and-Standards/L...

> wait, are building codes currently not copyrighted?

My understanding is that this is what is currently being argued about. Traditionally, the codes have been copyrighted, but more recently, people have argued that the law must be public (reasonable) and therefore if the law says "follow standard X", then standard X must therefor be public. It's still being argued, and this proposed law is an attempt to clarify this, supporting the pro-copyright side.

Not a lawyer.

Likely to be overturned if it actually becomes law. SuptCt has already decided state law cannot be copyrighted, and that likely extends to regulatory codes.

https://slate.com/technology/2020/04/georgia-state-law-copyr...

Free access does not exclude copyright and vice versa, isn't it?

You're right, but copyright on laws would still be a problem even if the copyright holder on the laws were to provide gratis access. Copyright would allow the rightsholder to ban other people from, among other things, providing third-party access to the documents. "You can read the law but you must ask us and only us for copies."

because corporativism has turned many western governments into other for profit corporations but they like to pretend it’s a public entity it’s just that basically nobody has security clearance anymore

Oh sure everyones a "citizen" but you're not a SuperPremiumPlus++ Citizen so you don't have access to that feature. /s

I think most of these symptoms are due to the death of "us". Civics and government, "We The People" refers to a collective "us" that share things. All powers, privileges and norms flow from a brain worm that my neighbor and I are alike, that you stranger are like me, and what is good for you is good for me.

That auto-chisel of isolationism marketing uses to sell us things, the death of third spaces, and a reality where you don't know if this comment was generated by a machine owned by a corporation, has the side effect of greatly weakening the concept of "us." Now its all a fight of demographics.

In this case the code bodies, inspectors, builders and municipalities are the concerned party and "us" citizens are as forgotten as powder wigs.

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