I don't know if you can distinguish the two so easily. You can't really expect the government to provide a slick interface or make the data easy to use. It's well outside of the court system's core competency. But if you make the raw data easily accessible then it creates the possibility for entrepreneurs to do something innovative with it, which leads to the public benefit.

Heck, that's pretty much where Lexis and West came from so long ago, but now technology is offering the possibility (at least in theory) to democratize the process so that someone can screw around with the data over a weekend or three and see if they can create something worth following up before they go through the trouble of looking for funding in order to buy data.

I don't know if we're even particularly arguing about anything. Is there really an argument to be made that this data should not be freely available? If "that day will come" then I guess all I'm saying is that sooner is better than later.