Web pioneer, standards activist, and co-founder of the Pirate Party of Norway, Håkon Wium Lie, writes that not only has the Norwegian public's access to its own written laws been re-confirmed but that his project has been credited for bringing the court around to that decision. Håkon has been leading the work to publish Norwegian law online since 1994 and the right to print the law goes back to the early 1800s and the Norwegian constitution. However, in 2018 he and his project were sued by a private foundation wishing to block that right.
We have fabulous news! The Norwegian government has announced an effort to give the public access to court decisions – and credited the rettspraksis.no project for being the inspiration!
As inspiration, Frølich refers to the rrettspraksis.no project ... which published court decisions freely on the web. Two of the volunteer behind the project, Håkon Wium Lie and Fredrik Ljone, were sued by Lovdata and finally lost in the Supreme Court.
—Their case was idealistic, and they tried to make it happen by themselves. They finally lost in the Supreme Court, but won my and many others' hearts. Their principles were clearly right, says Frølich.This is a stunning development in a case that could easily have ended up with two people being sued and silenced by a mighty monopolist. Support from our fellow citizens, combined with our strong beliefs in public access to public information made us fight the lawsuit rather than back down. As a result, we liberated 166 years on Norwegian Supreme Court decisions. But the Supreme Court itself barred us from publishing decisions from 2003-2008. More on that below.
Earlier on SN:
Court Bites Håkon Wium Lie Over Public Domain Norwegian Court Decisions (2018)
Related Stories
Håkon Wium Lie of WWW fame has written on his blog about being sued for publishing public domain court decisions in Norway. Various volunteers have been publishing this material at rettspraksis.no, which is now down because of the copyright lawsuit against them even though both Norwegian laws and court decisions are exempted from copyright in Norway.
The basis for the lawsuit has been the copyright harmonization effort, Directive 96/9/EC from 1996, which asserts a 15-year copyright on databases and their contents. Not worried that Norway is outside the EU, the judge apparently considered the matter for less than 24 hours and without hearing counter arguments before deciding against rettspraksis.no, taking the site's contents offline, even material older than 15 years, and then slapping the volunteers with a large legal bill. An appeal is underway.
Via Boing Boing : Norwegian court orders volunteers to take down public domain court verdicts and pay copyright troll's legal bills.
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Sunday December 08 2019, @08:51PM (9 children)
Despite proofreading, the actual link did not make it into the summary:
https://www.wiumlie.no/2019/rettspraksis/12-07-access-granted/ [wiumlie.no]
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 08 2019, @09:35PM (8 children)
Proofreading is like python hunting in Florida. Just when you think you've got a good grip on the damned thing, it turns around and bites you.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday December 08 2019, @10:13PM (6 children)
Good thing then the pythons are not venomous.
One wonders tho who ends having a better grip on the other.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday December 08 2019, @11:06PM (5 children)
Yeah really, pythons don't actually "bite", do they? I thought they just swallow the carcass.
This thing about 2003-2008. They must know something about Tony Blair and Wendi Deng [rogerebert.com] that we don't.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Informative) by black6host on Sunday December 08 2019, @11:09PM (3 children)
Indeed they do bite and I'd prefer not to be bitten by one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4037439/ [nih.gov]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday December 08 2019, @11:55PM
I'd prefer not to be bitten by one
Keep them well fed? Or at least out of reach...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday December 09 2019, @12:38AM
It's way more likely the python will get you in its grip, tho', that's the thing I'd worry first.
Linky's title:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 09 2019, @06:09AM
That is informative. I didn't realize how much damage those pythons could do to a human hand or even forearm. Relatively few snakes are large enough to cause that much harm, but all snakes will bite. It's pretty much the only defensive mechanism available once they have been discovered and attacked.
(Score: 4, Funny) by driverless on Monday December 09 2019, @12:50AM
This is Norway, they have to worry about møøse bites.
A Møøse once bit my sister... No realli! She was Karving her initials on the møøse with the sharpened end of an interspace tøøthbrush given her by Svenge - her brother-in-law - an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian møvies: "The Høt Hands of an Oslo Dentist", "Fillings of Passion", "The Huge Mølars of Horst Nordfink".
Anyway, møøse bites Kan be pretti nasti.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 08 2019, @11:22PM
One thing that Florida has gotten right (IMO) is "Online Sunshine" - all state statutes readily available on a reasonably well designed website - along with online access to a great deal of other legal records which have always been public record.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Sunday December 08 2019, @10:12PM (1 child)
I guess the next step is to start copyrighting and publishing law videos. Within a few years they will push for all new laws to be audio/video as to not disadvantage the illiterate and blind.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 08 2019, @10:15PM
You already feel disadvantaged?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 08 2019, @10:29PM (1 child)
Doesn't copyright mean anything to them? Next thing you know they'll be saying its OK to copy the Swedish chef's recipe book.
(Score: 3, Funny) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Monday December 09 2019, @02:12AM
They don't care, because the DRM will bork the copy.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by pipedwho on Monday December 09 2019, @06:00AM
Charging for access to legal precedent and legislation is a sad state of affairs. Not that it's even possible for any one man to know the entire codex of law, but at least if it's accessible there can be the possibility.
When even lawyers aren't fully across the entire legal framework, there is no chance for the layman.
Even reading the traffic act requires the consult of a law expert. Without which, there isn't much chance layman can understand the implications of what is written, what is enforceable, and what applies to them in which situations. Same applies to EULAs and other paralegal contracts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @09:15AM
The article has this text at the end of it:
Yet the EU Directive is not marked as being "Text with EEA relevance", so why would Norway be obliged to implement it?
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Monday December 09 2019, @01:01PM
https://archive.is/dmjdm [archive.is]