RE: the West Publishing arguments, the basic problem as I see it, is not that West added value to its products; not that they copyright the product; but that someone, anyone, is trying to make the rest of us buy only the west product.
The basic information West uses, and adds value to, is a government agncy work product paid for by the american taxpayers; these taxpayers should have the right to access to the information, and no one, not even the government, should restrict their access.
West should have the right to purchase the government information, just like anyone else; they should have the right to enhance the value to the product by adding page numbers, corrections, etc; and West should have the right to sell this product at whatever markup the market will bear, and to protect their product, successfully, with a copyright. The problem that has developed is that the government has decided it will provide the product only to West.
Agents of governments who deal in information, and who think about Public Access to the information, recognize that data collected in the activities of government is used for several purposes. The primary one is to create information from the data that demonstrates problems, creates rules and regulations and standards, or shows the current state of affairs in a regulated area. There are two tests of proper policy, a substantive and a procedural one. The substantive test is that the data used to indicate that policy-setting is needed, or are used to structure a new policy, must relate substantively to the matter being regulated. The procedural test means that the public and other government agencies must have access to the PROCESS of setting policy, rule, regulation or standard. This is more than simply inviting these people o hearings and listening to their objections and ideas; it also means the outsiders have access to the information and data used to decide whether new or changed policy is needed, or to actually set the limits to the new policy.
The courts set standards for future proceedings, and the information reported from the courts should be available to everyone. West takes data from the courts and converts it into information, by correcting spelling, adding page numbers, and creating a valuable product with an easily-used citation system. But the present system also removes availability of the base data from which the West product is created, from access by the public.
Our policy should be, let West sell their product for as much as it will sell for, but let everyone else have the same opportunity. --
Dave Gowan
<dgowan[_at_]freenet.scri.fsu.edu>
Received on Fri Mar 03 1995 - 18:38:54 GMT
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