>On Wed, 12 Apr 1995, Michael Trittipo, in responding to a message
>by Carl Hartman, attorney for Hyperlaw, complained that Carl's
>question about the copyright of the text of opinions was somehow out of
>line, because it reflected the concerns of a commercial competitor. For
>example, Michael said:
>> In short, such a question reflects a concern for a
>> competitor's pocketbook, not a concern for the public's access to the law.
> Only the
>courts can decide if West's assertion of copyright to the corrections is
>legal, but if it is found to be legal it will force the government to
>create its own reporters or databases of opinions in order to end a
>private monopoly. jamie
ok y'all, so we're back to square one: As in Mother Russia, the Bolsheviks saw
themselves compelled to take over private industry to gain free access to the
basic living necessities.
So, I recall that, in the heyday of commununism's vicegrip, people were
standing in line for the most basic of necessities. Waiting for y e a r
for cars, standing in line for basic items of one's daily toilette. Oranges
were an exoticum for which it was deemded quite normal to stand in line for an
entire day. Yes, rendering "survival tools" publically accessible under the
umbrella of government as the "Great Benefactor" / "Equaliser" was
intrinsically a worthy, virtuous idea in itself. However, helter-skelter
administration of this instrinsically worthy idea paired with the poison of
thirst for vengeance by the "long-vanquished classes" ironically led to the
practical collapse of any kind of order in that country and generated problems
which are still very serious today (almost a c e n t u r y later). The
benevolent hand of government-as-equaliser became the molasses-strewn, snail of
hopelessly quagmired bureaucracy. To act on a purely emotional idea without
taking into account practical questions such as feasibility could lead to the
destruction of the "information machinery" which it is intended to save. The
matter becomes increasingly complex when it embeds the equally strong forces of
a business' survival, one's family legacy, the public's right to public-domain
information, the idealism & fervor on both sides of the argument, and the very
valid concerns about the feasibility/practicality of actual governmental
efforts to create an "official" law-info machinery.
Are our practitioners going to stand for "standing in line" for y e a r s
for information they need for the resolution of their clients' cases?
It seems to me that the debate has the underlying element of the "Slicing of
the Pie called Poland" and is too complex to confine to the intrinsically
indeed worthy question of public access to "publicly generated" "law-as-
public-domain-information". The problem of this debate is greatly intensified
by each "side"'s tendency to focus on the immediate parameters of its own idea
paired with a general lack of calm approach to seeing the deeper facets of
"peaceable practicality", failure among active participants in endeavoring to
resolve these question with truly thorough, impartial, universally beneficial
view to each party's issues-propounded and just plain needs.
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