Congress Wants to Let Private Companies Own the Law | Hacker News Reader

Congress Wants to Let Private Companies Own the Law

techdirt.com

77 pointsWarOnPrivacy20 comments

Absolutely bonkers, how much did the lobbyists get paid to push this in?

Isnt there any more pressing concerns in this country?

The companies making the laws were able to figure out how to make money until now why do they need more protection?

This is incompatible with the Rule of Law. Anyone who thinks about this from first principles will conclude that all laws must be public and are not subject to copyright.

> This is incompatible with the Rule of Law.

Working as intended.

Those who know, know.

Every attempt I’ve made to interact with Lexis Nexis has been a nightmare.

Honestly though, what does a publisher of laws do these days? Couldn’t the government just say “actually we’re gonna take over publishing”, throw the PDF in S3 and call it a day?

The president certainly could, even if it was illegal.

That’s insane

So there will be a day were I can fire up my favorite bittorrent client and illegally allow others to obtain copies of US law? Bring. It. On.

Well, the US have also actually secret law...

Good. Maybe it'll bring a much needed reckoning for copyright law.

Is this a joke? It will almost definitely make copyright law worse than it already is.

My thinking is that it'll pervert copyright so totally that it'll lead to reform. I'm trying to stay optimistic.

Not going to happen. Truth is almost all creators, even small ones like individuals -- like copyright (with the exception for patent trolls). Only consumers don't like copyrights.

To twist a saying from economics: "The institution can remain irrational longer than you can remain unharmed."

There's also a significant probability that accelerationism ends up with something worse.

> But that’s missing the point. It still means that the law itself is only available from one source, in one format. And while it has to be “publicly accessible online at no monetary cost,” that does not mean that it has to be publicly accessible in an easy or useful manner. It does not mean that there won’t be limitations on access or usage.

Let's not put the cart before the horse, here. As long as it's freely available, it'll be shared and shared alike by those who DGAF. I'm thinking of the type of people who hosted fake vax check-in websites during peak COVID inanity.

The fact that it will be "freely available" doesn't mean you can distribute it legally.

Freely accessible != Public domain

ISO already does this. Looks like they want ISO competitors.

Now you want to improve the standard. Let's create another competing one. => xkcd

Insane

ISO is likely a driver behind this. From the article:

> This is where things get wonky. Since many of these standards are put together by private organizations (companies, standards bodies, whatever), some of them could qualify for copyright. But, then, lawmakers will often require certain products and services to meet those standards. That is, the laws will “reference” those standards (for example, how to have a building be built in a safe or non-polluting manner).

> [...]

> Still, that did not get at the specific issue of “incorporation by reference” which is at the heart of some of Malamud’s other cases. Two years ago, there was a pretty big victory, noting that his publishing of standards that are “incorporated by reference” is fair use.

> [...] often a large part of [industry standards bodies] own revenue stream comes from selling access to the standards they create, including those referenced by laws.

> So they lobbied Congress to push this Pro Codes Act, which explicitly says that technical standards incorporated by reference retain copyright. To try to stave off criticism (and to mischaracterize the bill publicly), the law says that standards bodies retain the copyright if the standards body makes the standard available on a free publicly accessible online source.

> Congress Wants to Let Private Companies Own the Law

But they already do. /s

Investing in elected representatives delivers the best ROI.

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