Re: West (was:HR830 - Anyone tracking this?)

[xpat@vm1.spcs.umn.edu]

>-    House republicans introduce legislation with a section
>     requested by West Publishing that will provide sweeping
>     changes in federal freedom of information act, and prevent
>     federal agencies from creating a public database that use
>     the West Publishing page numbers to reference case law.

Well, the West citation system *is* proprietary, without a doubt.
This is a case where ease-of-use has completely dominated. Court
records are completely laced with West citations.

>-    The "West Provision" would also end its lawsuit with Tax
>     Analyst, a Virginia publisher, who is seeking access to the
>     Department of Justice JURIS database of court decisions in
>     order to put the information into the public domain.  Tax
>     Analysts alleges the JURIS database of court decisions are
>     subject to FOIA and not protected by copyright.  A victory
>     by Tax Analysts in this case will lead to a public domain
>     database of federal court decisions.

The Tax Analyst lawsuit: destined to fail from the start.
If they want to do this they will have to come up with their own
indexing/citation system, and then get everyone to adapt to it.
About as likely as putting 73v AC wiring in every home in America.