Aggregator | JCA-NET

EFF has filed a new lawsuit against the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to ensure that the public has full access to the laws that govern us.

Our client Public.Resource.Org (Public Resource), a tiny non-profit founded by open records advocate Carl Malamud, has a mission that’s both simple and powerful: to make government information more accessible. Public Resource acquires and makes available online a wide variety of public documents such as tax filings, government-produced videos, and federal rules about safety and product designs. Those rules are initially created through private standards organizations and later incorporated into federal law. Such documents are often difficult to access otherwise, meaning the public cannot read, share, or comment on them.

Working with Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic, Public Resource has been submitting Freedom of Information Act requests to the CPSC requesting copies of the legally binding safety codes for children’s products—an area of law of intense interest to child safety advocates and consumer advocates, not to mention the families who use those products. But CPSC says it can’t release the codes, because the private association that coordinated their initial development insists that it retains copyright in them even after they have been adopted into law. That’s like saying a lobbyist who drafted a new tax law gets to control who reads it or shares it, even after it becomes a legal mandate.

Faced with similar claims, some courts, including the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, have held that the safety codes lose copyright protection when they are incorporated into law. Others, like the D.C. Circuit (in a case EFF defended on Public Resource’s behalf), have held that even if the standards don't lose copyright once they are incorporated into law, making them fully accessible and usable online is a lawful fair use.

Now EFF has teamed up with the Cyberlaw Clinic to continue the fight. We’re asking a court to rule that copyright is no barrier to accessing and sharing the rules that are supposed to ensure the safety of our built environment and the products we use every day. With the rule of law under assault around the nation, it is more important than ever to defend our ability to read and speak the law, without restrictions.

Corynne McSherry

【Bookガイド】3月の“推し本”紹介＝萩山拓(ライター)

日本ジャーナリストクラブ（JCJ）

1 day 1 hour ago

　ノンフィクション･ジャンルからチョイスした本の紹介です(刊行順･販価は税別)◆高橋和夫『イランとアメリカ、そしてイスラエル━｢ガザ以後｣の中東』朝日新書 3/13刊 1400円イランとの間で核開発について討議中に、トランプ大統領は再びイランを奇襲攻撃した。これに参加のイスラエルは、ガザとの停戦合意後もガザ空爆を続けている。ハマスと戦うイスラエル、その後ろ盾となるアメリカ、ハマスを支援するイラン。イランとアメリカの複雑な関係にイスラエルが加わり、ますます混迷を深めている。いく..

ＪＣＪ