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Cost of West Pagination License
What is the Cost of the West
Compulsory License for Pagination?
V. 1.0
September 26, 1996
James Love
The West copyright, if it exists, is for seventy five years,
or from about 1921. We looked at West Reporters since about
1924. Based upon our samples, there appear to be three
sizes for the reporters. From 1924 until 1969, the
reporters where an average of 1,004 pages. From 1969 to
1983, the reporters were an average of 1,395 pages, and from
1983 to the present, they were an average of 1, 583 pages.
(These averages based upon numbers for every 50th volume for
the older volumes, and every 10th volume for the most recent
volumes.)
We then did a very quick and dirty look at characters per
page, looking at only one sample from each of the three
periods. From F.2d Vol. 1, we examined 11 cases over 31
pages, which had 91,974 characters, with 2,967 characters
per page. From F.2d Vol. 600, we examined 11 cases, over 17
pages, with 2,251 characters per page. From F.2d. Vol.
800, we examined 11 cases over 42 pages, with 2,602
characters per page. These numbers are low, because the
compulsory license includes control or formatting characters
which are used by West, and we do not yet have a clue how
much of an increase this requires.
The cost of the license depends upon the year, beginning at
4 cents per 1,000 characters and ending at 9 cents per 1,000
characters (plus inflation), for every year and every
product.
Based upon these statistics, the cost (without taking into
account the control characters) of a license for a single
volume of a West Reporter (the F.2d and the Supp are the
same length in pages and use the same fonts), would be as
follows.
ANNUAL COST OF PAGINATION LICENSE PER
WEST VOLUME, WITHOUT CONTROL CHARACTERS
Year 1 Year 7
Pages Char/P @ .04 @.09
>From 1924 to 1969 1,004 2,967 $ 119 $ 268
>From 1969 to 1983 1,395 2,251 $ 126 $ 283
>From 1983 to Present 1,583 2,602 $ 165 $ 371
Regime Change in Books
F.2d F.Supp
1-403 1-292 1,004 pages
404-703 293-563 1,395 pages
704- Present 564-Present 1,583 pages
I assume that this can be improved with some additional
sampling, and particularly, with some help on what the
control characters add to the cost.
Jamie
love@tap.org
If someone wanted to help on this, they could break down the
volumes by year for me... allowing me to show the cumulative
cost by year, going backwards, per publication.
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James Love / love@tap.org / P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
Voice: 202/387-8030; Fax 202/234-5176
Center for Study of Responsive Law
Consumer Project on Technology; http://www.essential.org/cpt
Taxpayer Assets Project; http://www.tap.org
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