Slashdot visited in 2003 the precedential Veeck case (went to the Supreme Court) mentioned several times in this discussion see
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/07/08/204225
I support a "full daylight" policy for public access to laws and regulations with which compliance is mandatory. Indeed there are such transparency obligations on central and local governments within the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade.
http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/17-tbt_e.htm
"2.11 Members shall ensure that all technical regulations which have been adopted are published promptly or otherwise made available in such a manner as to enable interested parties in other Members to become acquainted with them."
See also Legislative and Regulatory Underpinnings of US Government use of Standards in Technical Regulations and Procurements and the development by Government of voluntary standards
http://www.gtwassociates.com/answers/Legislativeunderpinning.html
So for "technical regulations" with which compliance is mandatory, central and local governments could meet this expectation by posting them to the web. Central and local governments could also charge reasonable fees for paper copies of such "technical regulations" when requested.
However the issue becomes complicated when "technical regulations" embody text of standards from private sector standards developers. There is a precedent case
http://www.gtwassociates.com/answers/veeck.htm In the Supreme Court of the United States Southern Building Code Congress International, Inc, Petitioner Peter Veeck, D/B/A Regional Web No. 02-355. I have copied below relevant text:
"This case concerns model codes written and copyrighted by a private organization. The codes apply to the construction, alteration, use, occupancy, and maintenance of buildings and the electrical, plumbing, mechanical and gas systems in them and provided criminal misdemeanor penalties for failure to comply. The private organization offers the codes to government entities for enactment into law. Two municipalities enacted ordinances that adopted the model codes by reference. The question presented is: Whether copyright law gives the private organization the right to restrict individuals from making copies of the material incorporated by reference in the municipal codes of the two municipalities."
The Supreme court in making its decision not to hear the case essentially accepted the US solicitor General's advice about a June 10, 2002 decision of the court of appeals from the Fifth Circuit
"Supreme Court need not reconsider a June 10, 2002 decision of United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (293 F.3d 791 (5th Cir. 2002)). The Fifth Circuit had concluded that SBCCI retains the copyright in its standard, but that "[w]hen those codes are enacted into law
... they become to that extent 'the law' of the governmental entities and may be reproduced or distributed as 'the law' of those jurisdictions." The Fifth Circuit further observed that laws are not subject to federal copyright law, and "public ownership of the law means that 'the law' is in the 'public domain' for whatever use the citizens choose to make of it."
Many private sector standards developing organizations SDOs depend on the sale of standards to support their infrastructure. The implication for such SDOs was identified by the Dissenting opinion to the Fifth court decision by WIENER, Circuit Judge, joined by KING, Chief Judge, and HIGGINBOTHAM, DAVIS, STEWART, and DENNIS, Circuit Judges, dissenting:
"Technical codes and standards have become necessary, pervasive, and indispensable ingredients of Twenty-First Century life in this country; regrettably, today's majority opinion has a real potential of drastically changing the societal landscape through that opinion's predictably deleterious effects on these codes and standards, their authors, and the public and private entities that daily use and depend on them"
Many SDOs whose standards become mandatory by law or regulation strive to minimize the risk their standards will become public domain by seeking that laws and regulations do not copy the standard's text but refer to the standard by reference. See Regulatory Adoption by Reference of standards Copyright Considerations at
http://www.gtwassociates.com/answers/RegulatoryAdoptionbyReference.htm
Carl Malamed has posted to
http://bulk.resource.org/codes.gov/ links to the text of many copyrighted private sector standards whose requirements may have been incorporated word for word in the technical regulations of many local governments.
There is no clear path forward except inevitable litigation revisiting the Veeck decision. I am not an attorney and this is not legal advice. Standards developers already face "pirate" organizations who resell their copyrighted standards without permission. See for example in China:
http://www.bz02.com/ Such litigation affirming the Veeck decision will dramatically impact the business models of SDOs the text of whose standards are incorporated in laws and regulations. Since the Veeck case pertained to a standard that was incorporated by reference and not copied word for word in the regulation litigation affirming the Veeck case could also dramatically impact the copyright of standards incorporated by reference in laws and regulations
