Odd Terrorism

DaisyDay · May 17, 2019

This guy, Carl Malamud and his group, Public.Resource.Org, put the laws of the State of Georgia on a web-site on-line for anyone to access. The problem wasn't publishing the laws, which has been ruled legal since 1888, but with the judges' annotations to the laws to which Georgia retains the copyright.

19. On information and belief, Defendant is employing a deliberate strategy of copying and posting large document archives such as the O.C.G.A. (including the Copyrighted Annotations) in order to force the State of Georgia to provide the O.C.G.A., in an electronic format acceptable to Defendant. Defendant’s founder and president, Carl Malamud, has indicated that this type of strategy has been a successful form of “terrorism” that he has employed in the past to force government entities to publish documents on Malamud’s terms.

20. Consistent with its strategy of terrorism, Defendant freely admits to the copying and distribution of massive numbers of Plaintiff’s Copyrighted Annotations on at least its Yes We Scan! website. See Exhibit 3. Defendant also announced on the Yes We Scan! website that it has targeted the States of Mississippi, Georgia, and Idaho and the District of Columbia for its continued, deliberate and willful copying of copyrighted portions of the annotated codes of those jurisdictions. Defendant has further posted on the Yes We Scan! website, and delivered to Plaintiffs, a “Proclamation of Promulgation,” indicating that its deliberate and willful copying and distribution of Plaintiff’s Copyrighted Annotations would be “greatly expanded” in 2014. Defendant has further instituted public funding campaigns on a website www.indiegogo.com to support its continued copying and distribution of Plaintiff’s Copyrighted Annotations. Defendant has raised thousands of dollars to assist Defendant in infringing the O.C.G.A. Copyrighted Annotations.

Source (pdf): CODE REVISION COMMISSION ) on Behalf of and For the Benefit of the GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF GEORGIA, and the STATE OF GEORGIA V. PUBLIC.RESOURCE.ORG, INC.

According to Adam Liptak of the NYTimes:

NYTimes said:
The annotations include descriptions of judicial decisions interpreting the statutes. Only a very bad lawyer would fail to consult them in determining the meaning of a statute.

...“The annotations clearly have authoritative weight in explicating and establishing the meaning and effect of Georgia’s laws,” Judge Stanley Marcus wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel of the court, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta. “Georgia’s courts have cited to the annotations as authoritative sources on statutory meaning and legislative intent.”

Source: NYTimes

The annotations were compiled on behalf of the state by LexisNexis which gets a royalty for selling them. So the question seems to be: who do the laws belong to and who should have the right to make them public?

Both the plaintiff and the defendant have requested this go to the Supreme Court; the defendant prevailed in the lower court.

yeshuaslavejeff · May 17, 2019

Like "fake news", they will argue this in the media and perhaps even in courtrooms/ legal offices and agencies , whenever they think it is to their advantage.
Justice is not being served, nor being sought.

iluvatar5150 · May 17, 2019

yeshuaslavejeff said:
Like "fake news", they will argue this in the media and perhaps even in courtrooms/ legal offices and agencies , whenever they think it is to their advantage.
Justice is not being served, nor being sought.

What are you talking about?

yeshuaslavejeff · May 17, 2019

iluvatar5150 said:
What are you talking about?

The politics of it all...... no end to it. No solution either, until the end of it.

Chesterton · May 17, 2019

This is terrorism? Who is terrified?

tall73 · May 17, 2019

That certainly is an odd form of terrorism--publishing state work products that should belong to the people.

It sounds like this is something similar to police reports, a way to make money off of people and insurance companies, etc. for something that the government produces, and they know we need.

The argument that it saves the people money to have this company compile things rather than the state seems silly when it is the people who have to turn around and pay them for the right to see these things.

tall73 · May 17, 2019

Chesterton said:
This is terrorism? Who is terrified?

I would imagine investers in LexisNexus, and those who like the income agreement at the state.

Chesterton · May 17, 2019

tall73 said:
I would imagine investers in LexisNexus, and those who like the income agreement at the state.

So I guess McDonald's is "terrified" of Burger King.

RichardY · May 17, 2019

If anything, the State itself, has become a terrorist entity. Copyright belongs to "Georgia", a legal fiction. Would be like saying the USA has copyright on the American flag and cowboys. It's not even technicalities, but outright insanity.

Of the Kingdom · May 17, 2019

Is there a court record, with legal arguments of the reasons why this should or should not be copyrighted? Or is that court record copyrighted too?

Without some insight into the claims made by each party, we have little idea about whether this guy is "stealing" something, or revealing data that should automatically be public. From the point of view of the organization that produced the annotations, they reasonably expected to get some return from their efforts by selling them. If public policy is established preventing them from having an enforceable copyright, the governments may owe them some compensation because they are unable to keep their bargain.

I have to agree that referring to this as "terror" in any way seems way out of line. This is a legitimate conflict of principles, and both the states and the defendant are proceeding to establish the "right" balance in the courts. The arguments for the defense must be pretty good, if they won their court case so far. The supreme court can let that decision stand, or address it. Whichever way it goes, I would consider that both parties were acting responsibly in maintaining the position they thought ought to prevail.

Ana the Ist · May 17, 2019

DaisyDay said:
This guy, Carl Malamud and his group, Public.Resource.Org, put the laws of the State of Georgia on a web-site on-line for anyone to access. The problem wasn't publishing the laws, which has been ruled legal since 1888, but with the judges' annotations to the laws to which Georgia retains the copyright.

19. On information and belief, Defendant is employing a deliberate strategy of copying and posting large document archives such as the O.C.G.A. (including the Copyrighted Annotations) in order to force the State of Georgia to provide the O.C.G.A., in an electronic format acceptable to Defendant. Defendant’s founder and president, Carl Malamud, has indicated that this type of strategy has been a successful form of “terrorism” that he has employed in the past to force government entities to publish documents on Malamud’s terms.

20. Consistent with its strategy of terrorism, Defendant freely admits to the copying and distribution of massive numbers of Plaintiff’s Copyrighted Annotations on at least its Yes We Scan! website. See Exhibit 3. Defendant also announced on the Yes We Scan! website that it has targeted the States of Mississippi, Georgia, and Idaho and the District of Columbia for its continued, deliberate and willful copying of copyrighted portions of the annotated codes of those jurisdictions. Defendant has further posted on the Yes We Scan! website, and delivered to Plaintiffs, a “Proclamation of Promulgation,” indicating that its deliberate and willful copying and distribution of Plaintiff’s Copyrighted Annotations would be “greatly expanded” in 2014. Defendant has further instituted public funding campaigns on a website www.indiegogo.com to support its continued copying and distribution of Plaintiff’s Copyrighted Annotations. Defendant has raised thousands of dollars to assist Defendant in infringing the O.C.G.A. Copyrighted Annotations.

Source (pdf): CODE REVISION COMMISSION ) on Behalf of and For the Benefit of the GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF GEORGIA, and the STATE OF GEORGIA V. PUBLIC.RESOURCE.ORG, INC.

According to Adam Liptak of the NYTimes:

Source: NYTimes

The annotations were compiled on behalf of the state by LexisNexis which gets a royalty for selling them. So the question seems to be: who do the laws belong to and who should have the right to make them public?

Both the plaintiff and the defendant have requested this go to the Supreme Court; the defendant prevailed in the lower court.

What's the argument here? That insight into a judge's thinking will leave them targeted by vengeful families of the convicted?

Pommer · May 17, 2019

Ana the Ist said:
What's the argument here? That insight into a judge's thinking will leave them targeted by vengeful families of the convicted?

It looks like the State would like to be able to control the “annotations” so that it can rake in all the royalties for itself, though it seems as if the copyright would belong to the annotators (unless they’re not due any if the material was part of their official duties as a judge).

DaisyDay · May 17, 2019

Of the Kingdom said:
Is there a court record, with legal arguments of the reasons why this should or should not be copyrighted? Or is that court record copyrighted too?

The plaintiff's case is linked and quoted in part in the OP, but you have to click the links and read them.

Without some insight into the claims made by each party, we have little idea about whether this guy is "stealing" something, or revealing data that should automatically be public. From the point of view of the organization that produced the annotations, they reasonably expected to get some return from their efforts by selling them. If public policy is established preventing them from having an enforceable copyright, the governments may owe them some compensation because they are unable to keep their bargain.

Various judges wrote the annotations which LexisNexis compiled and attached to the statutes along with dates. The State of Georgia holds the copyright; the corporation receives royalties. This is in the OP.

I have to agree that referring to this as "terror" in any way seems way out of line. This is a legitimate conflict of principles, and both the states and the defendant are proceeding to establish the "right" balance in the courts. The arguments for the defense must be pretty good, if they won their court case so far. The supreme court can let that decision stand, or address it. Whichever way it goes, I would consider that both parties were acting responsibly in maintaining the position they thought ought to prevail.

One state, Georgia. Should public records be private? Should the state privatize sourcing its records?

DaisyDay · May 17, 2019

Ana the Ist said:
What's the argument here? That insight into a judge's thinking will leave them targeted by vengeful families of the convicted?

No, it's that the defendant is trying to force the plaintiff into providing public records to the public in a format of his choosing. It's in the two paragraphs of the case quoted in the OP.

DaisyDay · May 17, 2019

Pommer said:
It looks like the State would like to be able to control the “annotations” so that it can rake in all the royalties for itself, though it seems as if the copyright would belong to the annotators (unless they’re not due any if the material was part of their official duties as a judge).

I don't think it's even that - the royalties, if I understand this correctly, are going to the corporation that compiled the annotations (gathered and associated them with the statues in question so they could be found conveniently) as a form of payment for doing the work for the State. The State, instead of having its own salaried employees do the work, has outsourced it to LexisNexis - it saves the money it would have paid its workers while the company profits from the royalties.

I think the State couldn't sell the information directly, belonging, as it does, to the public. I gather that it's not the information of the annotations that is being sold, but the formatting, making the annotations footnotes to the statues for ease of look up.

Ana the Ist · May 18, 2019

DaisyDay said:
I don't think it's even that - the royalties, if I understand this correctly, are going to the corporation that compiled the annotations (gathered and associated them with the statues in question so they could be found conveniently) as a form of payment for doing the work for the State. The State, instead of having its own salaried employees do the work, has outsourced it to LexisNexis - it saves the money it would have paid its workers while the company profits from the royalties.

I think the State couldn't sell the information directly, belonging, as it does, to the public. I gather that it's not the information of the annotations that is being sold, but the formatting, making the annotations footnotes to the statues for ease of look up.

I don't understand the terrorism angle then. Who is in danger here?

Goonie · May 18, 2019

Ana the Ist said:
I don't understand the terrorism angle then. Who is in danger here?

There is no terrorism angle, which makes the use of the word decidedly odd. This is a civil case dealing with copyright and public records.

iluvatar5150 · May 18, 2019

If I had to guess, I’d suspect that their terrorism statute covers an array of crimes committed for the purposes of furthering a political agenda and provides the prosecutor with some legal tools not available if he pursued this as purely a civil matter.

DaisyDay · May 18, 2019

Ana the Ist said:
I don't understand the terrorism angle then. Who is in danger here?

Ask Georgia.

Odd Terrorism

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