There’s a great article about Carl Malamud in the Santa Rosa (CA) Press Democrat.  Mr. Malamud is the gadfly legal publisher who’s trying to prod states into lifting copyright restrictions on their laws and regulations.  He’s got a ton of free legal materials, much of which he scanned himself, available at public.resource.org.  He’s been profiled in several publications in the past, including the New York Times.

This week, Mr. Malamud made all 33,000 pages of the 38-volume California Code of Regulations available online for free.  That project required him to scan 150 pounds worth of legal docs. California officials were unaware of what he was up to until the reporter contacted them.  They were not amused:

“To purchase a digital copy of the California code costs $1,556, or $2,315 for a printed version.  The state generates about $880,000 annually by selling its laws, according to the California Office of Administrative Law … ‘We exercise our copyright to benefit the people of California,’ said Linda Brown, deputy director of the Office of Administrative Law, which manages the state’s laws.  ‘We are obtaining compensation for the people of California.’”

Let’s do the math and see just what that compensation amounts to.  California generates roughly 100 billion dollars in revenue.  Soooooo … 880,000 divided by 100,000,000,000 is … oh, dear … scientific notation.  When the copyright on your regs brings in 8.8 × 10^-6 of your budget, you gotta wonder whether it’s really worth it.

Link via ResourceShelf.

Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Internet Librarian
on September 04, 2008 - 10:08 am

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