Federal Court System

     I have once again recently priced the cost of getting Federal Court decisions on CD-ROM from West or Mitchie and choked at the cost. I however have recently noticed several legal publishers who are selling U.S. Supreme Court decisions on CD-ROM very reasonably priced. These publishers state very specifically that the information was derived from the Official US Reporter. I have spoken to some of these publishers about why they do not put together a CD-ROM for the Circuit and District Courts. The answer is usually that the company fears a lawsuit for copyright infringment from West. The issue being that West assets that it owns the pagination of F.2d/F.3d and F. Supp. In light of the Feist decision and the West v. Mead Data Star Paging opinion, what is the current state of the law; should any corporation hold a monopoly over US case law; and is there any legislative move to eliminate west's supposed copyright?

My spin is that since the Feist decision which eliminated the sweat of the brow theory from copyright, West has no rights in the pagination of case law. Additionally, from a policy standpoint, I believe that everyone should access to the law cheaply. Therefore, we should statutorily eliminate any rights to the pagination of court decisions, and allow free competition in the publication of court decisions.

Keith Lipman, Esquire
klipman[_at_]lklesq.com Received on Fri Feb 03 1995 - 22:16:51 GMT