Hi All-
I just want to take a short time on the soapbox to give my
opinion on the Wired article. I have to say that I agree
with Mr. Wren's concern over a publisher's right to
protecting a copyright, I don't think that is truly the
issue involved in this debate.
As I see it, this debate is over whether the Federal
Government should provide such a money making item
as case opinions to West and Mead without also establishing
a repository of the same materials for downloading by
the general public.
As Mr. Noe points out the technology has come so far that
it is unnecessary to obtain the search engine and the data
from the same source. With a database of opinions available
to the general public, public interest law groups and public
defenders, to name a few, the competion in the courts starts
to take place on a level ballfield.
It is my belief that Lexis and WestLaw have an unfair
publishing advantage by receiving these materials directly
from the court. It allows them to add value to the material
without any other group being allowed access to the material.
It seems to me that the most logical approach would be to
have a tape library at the GPO handle the opinions rom the
courts and then anyone who wants them can download them on a
daily basis.
Additionally, the Judiciary ought to develop a standard citation
form for the material on the database.
Once there is a standard electronic citation form and
everyone has access to the material, then the competition
is focused in the right arena.
All publishers would compete based on the Value Addes to the
material, _NOT_ on the access to the material.
These cases are simply to valuable to the citizens, who
have already payed for them with tax money, to be given
away and then resold back to them.
Okay, does someone else want to stand up here, I'm done
rattling on!
Brian-
Brian L. Baker
Interim Director
Howard University's Law Library
baker@scs.howard.edu
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