Outquisition, meet metanoia.

RA Wilson recounts a conversation about paranoia with PK Dick. What if, they wondered, the universe were out to help you? They coined the word metanoia (despite it already being a word with a completely different meaning) for "the irrational belief that the universe is out to help you."

Paranoid future - Mad Max gangs
Metanoid future - The Outquisition

Justia includes this odd copyright notice at the bottom of their page -

"Copyright © Justia - No copyright claim is made to any of the government data on these pages."

Their terms of service also include this gem - "Your use of the Service constitutes your binding acceptance of the TOS, including any modifications that we make."

Of course you'll never know what your binding acceptance includes because "We may modify this TOS at any time without notice to you by posting revised TOS on our sites."

Justia, the company Malamud is defending, demand that "By using the Service or any Services, you acknowledge and agree that you have fully read and agree to be bound by the provisions of this Agreement, exactly as if it were printed on paper and signed by you."

So now, by reading or searching through Oregon Law you have legally (according to Justia) committed yourself to whatever crazy item they decide to include in their TOS.

If you do not agree you must "stop using the Justia Web site." Agree or no law for you!

Justia also reserves the right to "Restrict, suspend or terminate your access to all or any part of the Service." Meaning that that are not about making the law open and accessible, but insist that they can control who can, and who cannot read the law.

And if you want to take Oregon law from the Justia site and put it on your own, you'd better not be running Google ads - "You agree not to reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, trade, resell or exploit for any commercial purposes, any portion of the Service." Even though Justia must advertise - "You also understand and agree that the Service may include advertisements and that these advertisements are necessary for Justia to provide the Service."

Of course you can't reproduce it even without commercials because - "information presented to you through the Service or advertisers is protected by copyrights."

And for some reason they hate Minnesota - "No services will be provided to residents of Minnesota."

So, why is Malamud defending these guys? Why isn't this simply a suit by Public Resource Org, which seems to have a much stronger case? It seems like having Justia involved could actually harm more than it helps.

The headline here is somewhat mis-leading. It should be something along the lines of - "Despite laws that Oregon law should be published economically and broadly available to most citizens, it is instead pushing a proprietary version that costs nearly $400 and their website sux."

This is not about copyrighting the law. While I agree with Malamud's argument that the Oregon lege hasn't lived up to their responsibilities, he doesn't address the core complaint of the takedown notice, which is -

"Although the Committee does not claim a copyright in the text of the law itself, the Committee does claim a copyright in the arrangement and subject-matter compilation of Oregon statutory law, the prefatory and explanatory notes, the leadlines and numbering for each statutory section, the tables, index and annotations and such other incidents as are the work product of the Committee in the compilation and publication of Oregon law. Many of these elements appear unchanged on your website, with no copyright notice or attribution given to the Committee. Moreover, at the bottom of each web page on which a segment of the Oregon Revised Statutes appears, Justia Inc. claims its own copyright."

The way you format and design non-copyright material CAN be copyrighted. Also, Justia doesn't seem to be able to work from a postion of good faith since they simply replaced the Committee's copyright notice with their own copyright.

It seems an alternative might be to post the laws on a wiki, strip away the formatting and prefatory comments, etc., and present that domain to the state of Oregon as a gift.

That monocle turret is a perfect place to keep your LED light to blind CCTV cameras.

That monocle turret seems to be a perfect place to keep your infrared LED to blind CCTV cameras.