NFPA 25 copyrighted or public domain (distribution) 1

[fpst]

For anyone paying $45 a pop for NFPA 25 to distribute, you may have been wasting money, see below.

What this also means is that we are free to post entire code sections of standards/codes adopted into law (or the entire standard), as we have the right to freely disseminate the law that binds us (here in the US at least).

I take it to also mean we are able to print out copies of NFPA 25 to hand to anyone in the US we choose, for free, where adopted into law. Anyone see a problem to this stance?

Source Ruling:

http://alturl.com/zazo3

 

[stookeyfpe]

Well, we jurisdictions are legally obligated to make the codes available to you. In my jurisdiction we put the local amendments on-line but we don't provide you with full access to every code and standard we adopt and purchase with tax dollars. If you don't like the fact that we don't put every code and standard that we adopt available to you on-line, we still comply with the model code because you can come to our office or go to the city clerk and look at it.

 

[fpst]

stookeyfpe, I'm not saying that local jurisdictions should freely provide every nuance law code, I'm saying US citizens can freely provide the law, if they wish.

 

[stevenal]

DRWeig,

Look again, this was not a Supreme court ruling, it was a district court.

 

[fpst]

stevenal,

when I read it, I gathered that a lower court or courts made a decision against the building codes being public domain, and ruled that Veeck would have to pay up for copyright infringement and remove the material from his website.

Later, the supreme court reversed the decision and took the case on in the first place because of the significance of the implications to the nation, their reversal as I read it is due to the codes adopted being law, and law is public domain, without copyright.

Where are you getting this "district court" ruling? Did you read to the end?

 

[stevenal]

Sorry, it was the Court of Appeals, not District court. My point remains; this was not a Supreme Court Case.
Try Link

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

The lower court was reversed, but not by the Supremes.

 

[fpst]

Thanks for clearing that up, it appears that what actually happened was:

The supreme court ruled in Wheaton v. Peters that:
"the law in the form of judicial opinions may not be copyrighted"

Then the supreme court later expanded upon that and ruled in Banks v Manchester that:
"The whole work done by the judges constitutes the authentic exposition and interpretation of the law, which, binding every citizen, is free for publication to all, whether it is a declaration of unwritten law, or an interpretation of a constitution or statute."

Then the court of appeals for the fifth circuit clarified that the law whether it has its source in judicial opinions, statutes, ordinances or regulations is not subject to federal copyright law.


There have been several other attempts to copyright and censor the law in the United States by similar code organizations, which is scary. I know the NFPA itself has gone after public.resource.org in legal battle, but for example the State of Oregon tried to copyright the "selection and arrangement" of their model codes/standards, in effect, they tried to copyright the order of the section numbers, index, tables, etc. to render their codes inaccessible to the public for copying unless tedious work was done (or unless you just pay up to read the law). This tactic was ruled as not substantial enough to warrant creativity and therefore not copyrightable, as merely displaying laws in a table or putting numbers by laws, or indexing them is not a creative work. It appears there is a long history of this battle going on to try and take away the publics' right to make the law as accessible as they wish. I can only hope the courts will continue to reject these attempts to censor laws as they have done since the beginning.

 

[wannabeSE]

I have not heard anything recently. Last year, NFPA, ASHRAE, and ASTM filed a lawsuit against Public.Resource.Org for copyright infringement

http://www.nfpa.org/press-room/news-releases/2013/media-statement

 

[fpst]

Yeah, I'm awaiting news on that too, but even if a lower court rules in NFPA, ASHRAE, ASTM's favor, it would be appealed just as similar cases have in the past or the media would have a field day as it would undermine the democratic process.

However from what I've read they're kind of shooting themselves in the foot by taking action, every time in the past a similar ruling has been made it has always made it clearer that their copyright is void when adopted by the government, and the best defense to copying they have right now is this whole illusion that their copyright claims are valid, dissuading potential copying by making the public fear distributing/making more accessible what they actually own. I personally would have never realized their copyright claims on many codes/standards was invalid unless I saw the post on NFPA.org about the lawsuit to public.resource.org and looked into it afterwards.

 

[stevenal]

So a private standards organization copyrights and publishes a standard. A government then adopts the standard by reference, which by this argument has the effect of voiding the copyright. Sounds like a government taking to me. Through no action or agreement by the standards organization, they have lost their rights. Even eminent domain actions require compensation. So do we require the government in question to compensate the standards organization for the lost sales? And then how do we treat the second government to reference the standard?

 

[stevenal]

Of course eminent domain is a poor comparison. Owners of condemned real property at least have a connection to the government in question. The holder of the voided copyright might have no connection at all to the government that caused the voiding.

 

[fpst]

The government adopts (or takes) these standards into law to protect its people and property, which is what a government is supposed to do.

By making these adopted laws as accessible as possible and free to the people who have to follow them, the government is also doing its job ensuring the law is as easy and free to get at as possible.

As far as I know, the NFPA doesn't want government funding and they also want to keep the copyrights on legal documents which is not currently allowed here in the US. Both of these facts are not conducive to a long life for the NFPA unless they can scare away potential standard/code distributors with false copyright claims. (This is true for many other private standards organizations), which appears to be their primary course of action.

Of course, funding has to come from somewhere, so if the NFPA's copyright veil is ever lifted on a bigger scale, and their sales drop, they're going to have to make some compromises. Part of making sales in the United States is being subject to United States laws (one being free access to the law and the government, ultimately representing the people, can adopt into law anything they choose, aka democracy).

 

[fpst]

I think what stevenal is proposing however is that we should be entitled to anything we create. I would like to remind stevenal that a male gazelle and female gazelle may make a baby gazelle, but that doesn't entitle them to the baby gazelle forever - a lion might eat it for example. That's about as fair as the real world gets. Governments using laws like copyright laws enable business to function much less barbarically, but part of that system relies on lawmaking, which, as its own special subsystem, can adopt anything it likes, even if you're very used to the comforting idea that anything you create is usually perfectly yours and safe and you can nail every person in the world who wants it with a fee, that comfort comes at a price - government, and governments require laws, and can't always be bothered compensating for it, as you may think your art piece, or code or standard, is worth a trillion dollars.

 

[cdafd]

nfpa puts the stuff on line free already,

just hard to read, and cannot copy and paste:::

http://www.nfpa.org/freeaccess

 

[fpst]

yeah, if you have an internet connection all the time, sign up, always browse to that webpage first, log in, jump through a few hoops, wait for the thing to load, and tediously browse pages at a snails pace, it's free, just not as accessible as possible, unless you pay. thankfully we don't have to live with that if we want to share legal documents.