Sometimes industry standards will be incorporated into law by reference. This poses a big problem when the publisher of those standards asserts a copyright. A citizen shouldn’t have to pay to learn what the law is if the citizen is expected to comply with that law.
The Indiana Law Blog has been covering this issue for a long time. It has a new entry today entitled Sheet metal and AC contractors demand take down of federally mandated standards posted online.
There are code publishers, like West, who are able to charge for value added with analysis and organization. And, historically, costs associated with duplication and distribution often resulted in a charge. But with the Internet and digital technology, duplication and distribution are not significant barriers. Words describing the rules lawmakers have given the force of law should not be withheld from citizens on the basis of copyright.
Laws should be in the public domain, stored in a git repository, and edited by means of applying patches.
There have been discussions about doing this source control logic for federal laws (in other words, build the diffs up from the law text). The problem, IIRC, is trying to interpret the law text into proper diffs automatically.
Unfortunately I can’t remember what group was working on that. Maybe govtrack.us ?
Once incorporated in law by reference, a rational/sane copyright law must allow free publication. The same should apply to scientific research funded in any way by tax money.
But US copyright and patent law is rather weird…the guy who invented the laser got screwed out of his rights, though another guy patented playing with a cat with a laser pointer. I am not making this up.
Another fun thing about incorporation of safety and building codes into law is the notion that the code can supersede the law. The international fire safety code (can’t recall its exact name) is incorporated into law all over the US, and it allows local fire officials to enter premises at their discretion, to conduct safety inspections. Without a warrant.