Firms trying to copyright government law

Electronic Frontier Foundation -  EFF announced it will defend open-government advocate Carl Malamud and the organization he founded, Public.Resource.Org, against a copyright lawsuit filed by three standards development organizations.

On August 3, the National Fire Protection Association, ASTM International and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers filed a lawsuit with a federal court in Washington, D.C., alleging "massive copyright infringement" by Public.Resource.Org for publishing codes and standards that have been incorporated into law. EFF argues such standards must be treated as part of the public domain, and Public.Resource.Org has a constitutional right to ensure government accountability by making the documents publicly available.
"Standards organizations get huge benefits from having their standards adopted as mandatory by federal and state regulators," EFF Staff Attorney Mitch Stoltz said. "But those benefits don't include the right to control access to those laws."

This isn't the first time Public.Resource.Org has faced legal threats for its work. In Public.Resource.Org v. SMACNA, a standards development organization claimed that it held the copyright in federally mandated air-duct standards and that Malamud's site violated its copyright by publishing them online. EFF and co-counsel Fenwick & West and David Halperin stepped in to litigate the case, and SMACNA promptly backed down.

The stakes are even higher this time around. The standards in question are crucial to the public's interest in fire and electrical safety. Public access to such codes is important when, for example, there is an industrial accident or natural disaster, or when a homebuyer wants to double-check that a house was built to code. Public.Resource.Org publishes the codes in a user-friendly format for not only interested citizens, but reporters, researchers, and business owners.