Comment by jrochkind1 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jrochkind1 | Hacker News Reader

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Your comment reminds me of related thing, with building codes in the US. The Supreme Court recently ruled they could not be copyrighted, for the reasons you say, they are laws that need to be available.

These codes are often produced by a single organization, "International Code Council", a non-profit somewhat analagous to ISO, which I believe sells them to governmental jurisidictions which adopt them as law, sometimes with some customizations or "choose A or B" choices.

One of the parties to the lawsuits involved happens to be a Y Combinator funded company, "UpCodes".

https://archinect.com/news/article/150195411/supreme-court-r...

https://www.constructiondive.com/news/construction-code-purv...

https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/16/a-court-decision-in-favor-...

In the US, if there are any cases where an ISO code is mentioned in law as legally binding in some way, it's possible someone could try to challenge the ability to keep from sharing the relevant standard text freely. It's not exactly the same situation, but this supreme court decision provides a possible path anyway.

Same problem with the building standards in Australia.

Same problem in Australia with the AS/NZS standards. I've been having problems with my whiteset plaster, which is like a liquid applied white plaster surface used on almost every home here in Western Australia. Mine was done incorrectly, I had to purchase two different $250 standards to understand how it was done wrong, how it should behave, how it was tested, in order to file a complaint. It may not surprise you part of the reason it was applied incorrectly is because not every trade has a copy of said standard.

And then even once you purchase it, it's a "one user" watermarked PDF you're supposed to only have 1 copy of and there's lots of harsh warnings about that, so even those that have it and scared to run around with it.

It's a crazy situation. Because this is legislated stuff for building. As a consumer it's very expensive to inform yourself on these things. If you wanted to inform yourself on all aspects of a build it would get expensive fast.

It's also difficult for me to publish and discuss this information in the public domain to help other consumers having the same problem, as the limits of how much text I can "copy" appears technically set at 0 even though it's standard to "reference" it. But it's very easy to mis-interpret the standard if you don't read things in context.

If the standards are effectively government legislated they either need to be government funded (this makes total sense to me) or the price needs to be much more token, 10 dollars, with much less draconian access. But at that price the government may as well fund it anyway.

It's not so surprising in Australia - protectionism is the norm here, where legally you have to hire an electrician to change a plug on an appliance. Making the standards expensive tends to force the average consumer to pay for the (overpriced) services of a professional.

> These codes are often produced by a single organization, "International Code Council"

Somewhat off-topic, but I've never quite understood the American tendency to call something the "International X" when the US is only the country of any significance involved in it.

(It may be technically true that a handful of small countries have adopted the US building code – such as Bermuda or Western Samoa. But that doesn't change its status as an essentially American code. The US is the only major economy to use it, and non-US entities have very minimal, if any, input on its contents. And a few small countries might have adopted the US building code even if it was called "US" rather than "International".)

Marketing.

Delusions of grandeur

I hadn’t heard of the ICC before, but their “About” page claims chapters in 38 countries and their “Find a Chapter” page (https://www.iccsafe.org/membership/chapters/icc-chapters-and...) has links for Canada, Australia, and Mexico. I think it’s probably ok to consider that international in that context.

Australia doesn't use America's building codes. Australia has its own. And their "Australian chapter" is the Australian Institute of Building Surveyors (AIBS) – which it is worth noting is not the Australian body which develops Australian building codes – that's the Australian Building Codes' Board (ABCB). The AIBS is the professional body for building surveyors, and as such while its members have some role in enforcing those codes, it doesn't develop them itself–although they are able to provide input to the ABCB's public consultations (same as any other organisation is.)

I don't know what the actual point of having the AIBS as a chapter of the ICC is. Probably an excuse for some overseas business trips.

Good to know, but that’s probably moving the goal posts a bit. This looks like a private industry group set up to proactively influence adopted standards (ie: a lobby) and does so internationally.

At least in the US it’s fairly common for lobbies to offer prewritten codes in the hopes that the adopted codes are (at least pretty close) to the ones they want.

You could argue whether such a practices are how private industry and governmental regulations should interact, but it doesn’t seem like the term “international” is particularly problematic in the name. The “World Series” (of baseball) on the other hand...

> This looks like a private industry group set up to proactively influence adopted standards (ie: a lobby) and does so internationally.

Who are you saying is lobbying who here? Are you saying AIBS is lobbying the ICC? Or that the ICC is lobbying the AIBS?

I don't see why the AIBS would engage in lobbying about the contents of US building codes. What difference does it make to building surveyors in Australia what building codes in the US say?

You seem like you have a more detailed picture of the ground truth here, but that part you’ve basically said yourself (and I agree with, under the disclaimer that I found an “About” page and that’s the end of my knowledge):

AIBS appears to be a member of the ICC. The ICC appears to be an international lobby. In that context, AIBS (probably) lobbies the ABCB with some help from the ICC as do other chapter members their own respective government representatives or regulatory bodies. Or maybe they just enjoy the ICC newsletter emails. I was only pointing out that international here is not an really a presumptuous “the US is the world” misnomer.

I wouldn't call this an American tendency. Generally the word "international" is used for things which are expected or aspire to be truly international.

If anything the American tendency is to restrict interest to the US.

Can you name some examples? In Europe it's so easy and normal to organize a multi-national conference that it'd seem weird to start something that aspired to be international without inviting participation from multiple countries.

We call our baseball thing the “World Series” because sometimes Canada plays.

Realistically it’s more probable that the group started out with a goal of world-wide adoption of the standards they produced and failed to get traction outside the USA sphere of influence.

"Samoa" (nee "Western Samoa") since 1997.

If anyone is interested, below is a relevant portion of the court's analysis from the Up.Codes case in the original document linked to at the end of the Techcrunch article above. They lay out criteria by which a copyrighted work is considered "the law", giving the public free access to it:

"the principles that guide the Court’s analysis seem relatively clear. The law is in the public domain, and the public must be afforded free access to it. SeePRO, 140 S.Ct. at1507. That a law references a privately-authored, copyrighted work does not necessarily make that work “the law,” such that the public needs free access to the work. CCC, 44 F.3d at 74. However, a privately-authored work may “become the law” upon substantial government adoption in limited circumstances, based on considerations including (1) whether the private author intended or encouraged the work’s adoption into law; (2) whether the work comprehensively governs public conduct, such that it resembles a “law of general applicability”; (3) whether the work expressly regulates a broad area of private endeavor;(4) whether the work provides penalties or sanctions for violation of its contents; and (5) whether the alleged infringer has published and identified the work as part of the law, rather than the copyrighted material underlying the law."

That is a severe overstatement.

The Supreme Court ruled in Georgia vs public.resource.org, which was very much not about building codes. P.R.Org actually does have another ongoing lawsuit that is similar to UpCode's: American Society for Testing and Materials et al. v. Public.Resource.Org

The UpCode ruling was at the district court level, and merely cited the ruling from Georgia vs public.resource.org.

Until we get at least appellate level decisions on the copyrightability of enacted codes, I'm unlikely to feel satisfied.

Hm, thanks for correction. I'm definitely not an expert. I just vaguely remembered that it was something that was at one point being legally challenged, so looked it up and found those articles, with headlines including:

"Supreme Court rules that building codes cannot be copyrighted"

"Construction code purveyor calls Supreme Court's ruling that annotated code can't be copyrighted 'monumental'"

Are you saying those headlines were overstating?

If I read the TechCrunch article properly the UpCodes case was decided at the district level by judge Victor Marrero. The judge cited the recent victory by PRO Inc. in the Supreme Court

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-1150_7m58.pdf

> The Supreme Court recently ruled they could not be copyrighted, for the reasons you say, they are laws that need to be available.

No, it didn't. It ruled that the State of Georgia couldn't claim copyright on officially-annotated legal codes. Your sources note this and speculate about how it might impact a different ongoing dispute about privately-copyrighted building codes owned by the ICC that are often referenced in, and thereby given force of, law (and the TC one of discusses it having an effect on a non-terminal ruling in the case (a motion to dismiss which was denied, allowing the case to move forward but not resolving it.)

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