Aug

17

Free access to the laws that bind us?

Filed Under Statute Law Database, Information rights, Law publishing 

Heather Brooke who blogs on FoI issues on Your Right to Know writes today in Technology Guardian about the Statute Law Database as part of its Free Our Data campaign under the headline “Access denied to the laws that govern us”.

It’s true the public continues to be denied access to the SLD which has been some 10 years in the making. That will change with the public release, likely in December. But the DCA is reserving its position on rights to access and re-use the SLD which it regards as a “value added product” for which it must, according to the Treasury, attempt to recoup its outlay.

We’ll have to wait and see what is the “commercial model” it is hatching. It’s impossible to see how it will be able to charge for access without incurring the wrath of us all.

What of re-use then? There’s any number of ways the DCA could charge for commercial re-use. But if the SLD comes up to scratch - ie, as advertised, is the definitive, reliable, up-to-date repositary of consolidated primary and unconsolidated secondary legislation - commercial publishers will think twice about substantial re-use and repurposing of the data. Instead they will link extensively to the SLD and/or frame SLD provisions alongside their own annotations and commentary. That will be lead to extensive access by end-users via requests from the publishers’ servers.

By Nick Holmes, 17 August 2006
Filed Under Statute Law Database, Information rights, Law publishing 

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