[A2k] 1.8 million pages of federal case law to become freely available

[Manon Ress]

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[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
Announcement
1.8 million pages of federal case law to become freely available.
http://public.resource.org/case_law_announcement.html

WASHINGTON, D.C. / SEBASTOPOL, CA=97November 14, 2007=97
Public.Resource.Org and Fastcase, Inc. announced today that they will
release a large and free archive of federal case law, including all
Courts of Appeals decisions from 1950 to the present and all Supreme
Court decisions since 1754. The archive will be public domain and
usable by anyone for any purpose.

=93The U.S. judiciary has allowed their entire work product to be
locked up behind a cash register,=94 said Carl Malamud, CEO of
Public.Resource.Org. =93Law is the operating system of our society and
today's agreement means anybody can read the source for a substantial
amount of case law that was previously unavailable.=94

Fastcase, the leading developer of next-generation American legal
research, has agreed to provide Public.Resource.Org with 1.8 million
pages of federal case law. This is a marked departure for the online
legal research industry, which traditionally has charged expensive
subscription fees to access this information.

=93For eight years, Fastcase has been ahead of the market curve,
working to democratize access to the law,=94 said Ed Walters, CEO of
Fastcase, Inc. =93At the same time, we have been advancing the science
of search, combining the precision of traditional legal research with
the simplicity of Web-based searches.=94

Fastcase has reversed the traditional subscription model for lawyers,
contracting directly with 11 state bar associations to make the
national law library free for lawyers in their states. =93Through this
agreement with Public.Resource.Org, we are proud to expand our
efforts beyond lawyers, and to make more of the law available to the
general public at no cost,=94 Walters said.

The agreement calls for definitive paperwork approved by both parties
within 30 days with Public.Resource.Org making developer snapshots of
the archive available in early 2008. Public.Resource.Org is
represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in this
transaction. The cases will be marked with a new Creative Commons mark
=97CC-=D8=97that signals that there are no copyrights or other related
rights attached to the content.

This transaction represents a one-time purchase of a copy of data.
This corpus will be integrated into the ongoing public services from
organizations such as AltLaw and the Legal Information Institute,
thus providing continuity of coverage into the future. Further
announcements will be forthcoming on the availability of other case
law, including Federal District and pre-1949 Appellate decisions.

Public.Resource.Org intends to perform an initial transformation on
the federal case law archive obtained from Fastcase using open source
=93star=94 mapping software, which will allow the insertion of markers
that will approximate page breaks based on user-furnished parameters
such as page size, margins, and fonts. =93Wiki=94 technology will be used
to allow the public to move around these =93star=94 markers, as well as
add summaries, classifications, keywords, alternate numbering systems
for citation purposes, and ratings or =93diggs=94 on opinions.

Media Contacts
Lisa Miller =09Carl Malamud
Fleishman-Hillard/Fastcase, Inc. =09Public.Resource.Org
+1.202.857.2209 =09+1.707.827.7290
lisa.miller@fleishman.com =09carl at media dot org

About Fastcase

Fastcase is the leading American provider of next-generation legal
research, making the law accessible to more people by providing the
national law library at a fraction of the cost of traditional
companies. Using patented software that combines the best of legal
research with the best of Web search, Fastcase helps busy legal
professionals sift through the clutter, ranking the best cases first
and enabling users to re-sort results to find answers fast. Founded
in 1999, Fastcase has more than 275,000 paid subscribers from around
the world. It is an American company based in Washington, D.C. For
more information, visit www.fastcase.com.

About Public.Resource.Org

Public.Resource.Org was founded in 2007 to spearhead the creation of
public works projects for the Internet. A 501(c)(3) registered public
charity, Public.Resource.Org has worked across all three branches of
the U.S. government to enhance the public domain.

=961110=96

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Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@keionline.org,

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Il vaut mieux remuer une question, sans la d=E9cider, que la d=E9cider,
sans la remuer.
Pens=E9es, essais, maximes et correspondance de J. Joubert  p.249
http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/Visualiseur?Destination=3DGallica&O=3DNUMM-88671
Translation: It is better to debate a question without settling it
than to settle a question without debating it