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This outcome was pretty important. Companies can't charge you because they hold the copyright to the details of a law.


https://www.eff.org/press/releases/appeals-court-upholds-publicresourceorgs-right-post-public-laws-and-regulations

**Appeals Court Upholds Public.Resource.Org’s Right to Post Public Laws and Regulations Online | Electronic Frontier Foundation** • https://www.eff.org/press/releases/appeals-court-upholds-publicresourceorgs-right-post-public-laws-and-regulations
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#technology #law #copyright #copywrong

via Diaspora* Publisher -

Well, technically, I guess they still can try to charge you. If you find someone has published the details of the device standard elsewhere for free, though, I would think you're a lot less likely to pay.
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This is a long ongoing fight and Carl Malmud deserves a prize for his work.

One of the first cases in this was back in the late 1990s when Peter Veeck tried to publish local building codes. (BTW I have met Peter V. and know his attorney, Eric W.)

Veeck v. Southern Building Code Congress Int'l, Inc., 293 F.3d 791 (5th Cir. 2002)

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/293/791/521953/

There is a residual question, particularly in the context of building codes, about how we cover the costs of developing those codes.

BTW, recently we were required by a customer to paint our products a particular shade of International Orange (so that they would be easy to spot and less likely to be left inside aircraft and rockets.) We were given a Federal standard for the paint color, only to discover that it is now a pay-through-the-nose standard via the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE.) (Fortunately we were able to simply mail-order a spray can of the stuff from a company in Texas.)