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from the ignorance-is-no-excuse-under-the-law...but-if-you-cannot-find-out-what-the-law-IS... dept.
This week, open and equitable access to the law got a bit closer. For many years, EFF has defended Public.Resource.Org in its quest to improve public access to the law — including standards, like the National Electrical Code, that legislators and agencies have made into binding regulations. In two companion lawsuits, six standards development organizations sued Public Resource in 2013 for posting standards online. They accused Public Resource of copyright infringement and demanded the right to keep the law behind paywalls.
Yesterday, three of those organizations dropped their suit. The American Educational Research Association (AERA), the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME), and the American Psychological Association (APA) publish a standard for writing and administering tests. The standard is widely used in education and employment contexts, and several U.S. federal and state government agencies have incorporated it into their laws.
[...] Three other standards development groups (the American Society for Testing and Materials, the National Fire Protection Association, and the American Society for Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers) continue to pursue their suit against Public Resource. We're confident that the court will rule that laws are free for all to read, speak, and share with the world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 17 2020, @07:50PM
This looks like a good result.
However, for the second act, one guess is that the standards-creating-orgs will ask the states/feds to remove references (to the standards they have developed) in the laws. That way, users who want to use these standards will have to buy copies again...