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Comment by OldHand2018 | Hacker News Reader

OldHand2018

We should not forget that this paywall exists only because Congress forced it to exist.

From the article is sounds like several commercial services (like background checks) are using this data in very high volume. The charges may simply have been put in place to offset the cost of serving these high volume customers.

Should the US government subsidize the commercial interests by providing unlimited access for free? Or, is it their duty to provide the information for free to any citizen or US company as a function of the government?

Sibling comments already mentioned that it's free individuals if your volume is low enough. They charge 10 cents per page and if your quarterly charges don't exceed $30, you don't get billed. That works out to around 300 "free" pages per quarter per person.

No, it's closer to the opposite. The statute says that the courts "may, only to the extent necessary" charge fees for access to PACER. I don't think there would be any legal barrier to the courts eliminating the paywall other than the courts have become dependent on the revenue stream. I suppose in that sense Congress has forced it to exist by failing to provide an alternative funding source.

> "may only to the extent necessary"

You would think 10¢ per page would be excessive though. Thankfully, that ruling a few weeks ago agreed. I could understand that cost if you had to go to an actual courthouse and have a clerk photocopy it for you, but the cost of transferring a PDF of these sizes over the internet is less than 10¢ per document.

On the flip side, the courts are blatantly ignoring the law and charging orders of magnitude more than congress authorized them to.

No one comes out smelling rosy in this right now.

I’m on the fence over this issue. Yes, it’s egregious for citizens to have to pay a lot of money to access court records. At the same time, the system provides an independent source of funding for the judiciary. If Congress succeeds in tearing down this paywall then courthouses will become more reliant on Congress to fund them in the budget.

It’s not hard to see how some future Congress might hold the judiciary hostage by cutting funding.

The nominal cost of providing a page on the internet is nowhere close to 10 cents. It's a stupid way to make money. If the judiciary needs money, they need to figure out something more sensible than begging for 10 cents a page.

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