#9 sez "Seriously, it's as though if we can't access it on the internet then it doesn't exist.."

It may exist but it isn't public. In this day and age, visibility on the net *is* the definition of what makes something public.

John Markoff did a very nice job writing up this seminal event in his 2005 book What the Dormouse Said.

(One of the most fascinating aspects of that demo to me was the fact that they couldn't move their computers up to the demo hall in San Francisco so they reportedly ran their own radio links from Palo Alto all the way up the Peninsula.)

This issue is not Flickr versus noncommercial sites. The Commons is simply an initial point of injection. Since there are no restrictions on use, you are free to take the images and repurpose them on another site.

#22 - accuracy would be a valid concern, though they could build a sha1 or md5 hash, just like we do with software distribution. alas, though, it is all about the money in this case and they are very upfront about that.

We filed a third records request today, which you can see here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/2544526/FOIA-Request-3

GAO did a pilot study with 1.2 million pages which were turned into PDF documents before they issued their contract with Thomson.

The quality of these pilot scans probably isn't up to the standards of the current deal (the contract says Thomson will have to rescan everything that was done in the pilot phase), but we're not proud, and our records request said we'd be happy to send them a disk drive.

@whoknew said:

| Until then, you really have nothing to
| offer the government.

And, sadly, vice versa appears to be true as well!

In this day and age, a work of the government cannot be said to be public unless you can see it on the Internet.

Cory's headline, as usual, is right on the money. This is all about $$. A chief judge has the budget for the deluxe Wexis packages, so they don't feel the pain. But, there are an amazing number of government lawyers, solo practioners, and public interest lawyers who don't have access to the databases they need to do their jobs.

The judiciary has allowed an oligopoly to come into being that lives on top of a public domain resource, keeping prices high and supply low. Limiting supply to public documents just doesn't make sense from an economic viewpoint and it certainly doesn't make any sense from a democratic viewpoint.

@adam: No skull-and-crossbones, but we do have the great seal of the seal of approval. :)

@lawyers: My query to the AO was simply asking them to have a phone call about the issues. While I think they should serve their own data to the public and they should certainly consult their own databases, at the very least I thought the Judiciary might want to simply have a copy of their work product in their archives for safekeeping.

As to the comments saying that what you get out of the commercial services is wonderful value-add like search technology, annotations, and key classification, I would posit that the tools that lawyers get to use today are totally primitive. If the raw data were available and any grad student or garage entrepreneur could take a shot at building something better, we would all be amazed and democracy would be better served.

(And, lawyers would probably spend a lot less money paying rent to the Wexis Cartel, but we're not doing this to save layers money.)

The New York Times had a nice article on U.S. dog rentals on Sunday.

@doorframe, @whoknew ...

Didn't mean to tar the whole profession as seen through each individual. There are lots of great lawyers doing noble things and helping the world (e.g., lots of lawyers fighting for civil rights, doing legal aid, representing nonprofits pro bono).

But, the profession as seen through the institutions they've created *has* gone badly wrong and that shines particularly bright when it comes to the issue of why we our legal system has become a $10b/revenue stream. It is particularly frustrating to hear what great value-add West and Lexis add for working professionals ... if the core data, which is all public domain, were broadly available, much better tools would be available.

There is a readme on the site that explains that the files are indeed searchable. If you look in each of the directories (e.g., here) you'll see there is a PDF file for each of the cases.

But, more importantly, this is a wholesale site, not a retail site. Public.Resource.Org is "liberating" the core data and making it available without restriction. A dozen for-profit and non-profit groups are all working with the data to build sites.

The legal profession is quick to explain that their needs are unique and are only met with high-priced services from Lexis and West. But, when the cost of the raw data is $500k-many millions, there is a huge barrier to entry, which has resulted in very poor tools serving the legal profession and no tools serving "ordinary" citizens. Our work is as much about innovation as it is about the right of the populace to read the rules of our society.

I wish more lawyers like those commenting above realized that the legal profession has sadly failed in its obligations to the public at large and many more lawyers need to think more about public service and less about their own personal bottom line.