EFF Launches New Fight to Free the Law

"Public Resource acquires and makes available online a wide variety of public documents such as tax filings, government-produced videos, and federal rules about safety and product designs. Those rules are initially created through private standards organizations and later incorporated into federal law. Such documents are often difficult to access otherwise, meaning the public cannot read, share, or comment on them."

"CPSC says it can't release the codes, because the private association that coordinated their initial development insists that it retains copyright in them even after they have been adopted into law. That's like saying a lobbyist who drafted a new tax law gets to control who reads it or shares it, even after it becomes a legal mandate."

"Some courts, including the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, have held that the safety codes lose copyright protection when they are incorporated into law. Others, like the D.C. Circuit, have held that even if the standards lose copyright once they are incorporated into law, making them fully accessible and usable online is a lawful fair use."

Public.Resource.Org, a non-profit dedicated to making government information accessible, seeks to obtain and publish legally binding safety codes for children's products through Freedom of Information Act requests. The CPSC refuses to release these codes, claiming the private standards organizations that developed them retain copyright even after incorporation into federal law. This prevents the public from reading, sharing, or commenting on rules that govern product safety. EFF and Harvard Law School's Cyberlaw Clinic are challenging this restriction, arguing that safety codes lose copyright protection upon incorporation into law or that making them publicly accessible constitutes lawful fair use. The case addresses whether private organizations can control access to documents that have become legal mandates.

Read at Electronic Frontier Foundation