Britain opens up the law

By Cory Doctorow at 7:01 am Wednesday, Jan 10

The British government has published a database of Britain's laws -- and they've opened the database up for copying, re-use and other reworkings. So now, Britain's laws belong to the British people. Believe it or not, in the USA, although the law is in the public domain, it's generally necessary to buy an expensive subscription to a database like Westlaw if you're going to make any use of it.

The Statute Law Database has been in the works for some time, but it wasn't always intended to be free -- the initial announcement implied that the government would add restrictive licensing terms to its database. But activists fought back and made a stink, and achieved total victory. Link (Thanks, Rufus!)

Update: Justin sez,

While case law access is still dominated by Lexis & West, there are many public statute and regulation resources provided by the federal government for free.

GPO Access. The Government Printing Office has an excellent database of legislative documents, including public laws, the U.S. Code, and the Congressional Record (floor debates, etc.). In addition, GPO's database of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and the Federal Register (FR) are better, IMHO, then their commercial counterparts. The CFR and FR are where to look for those TSA travel regs and Bush's "signing statements."

THOMAS, created by the Library of Congress is great for currently pending legislation, searching bills by sponsor, and treaties.

Cornell LII. While not run by the federal government, Cornell's Legal Information Institute is another excellent free resource (donations welcome, however) -- especially for the the U.S. Code.