Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!natinst!bigtex!james
From: james@bigtex.uucp (James Van Artsdalen)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: U. S. Supreme Court Opinions On-Line - Can We Gateway?
Message-ID: <6275@bigtex.uucp>
Date: 16 Aug 88 23:04:06 GMT
References: <25634@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <1320@percival.UUCP>
Reply-To: james@bigtex.UUCP (James Van Artsdalen)
Distribution: na
Organization: F.B.N. Software, Austin TX
Lines: 45

In article <1320@percival.UUCP>, gary@percival.UUCP (Gary Wells) wrote:
> I'm for it.  I think we could probably do without the _whole_
> decision, maybe just the summary.

What you're thinking of as the summary is the part copyrighted to West
Publishing.

Important stuff can be in the body of the decision.  As I've said many
times now, a recent 5th circuit appellate decision void contract
clauses preventing modification of programs.  Someone in
comp.sys.sequent recently complained of a bug granting root access
surrounding the user-limit (how many users are licensed to be on at
once): he knew a way to fix it but thought that Sequent's license
forbade manipulation of that code.  But towards the end of the Vault
v.  Quaid decision from the appellate court, you can see that in fact
he may change the user-limit at will, to any degree useful (even
removing the limit altogether).  This was the most significant part of
that decision to me, and it wasn't even in West's footnote (West
mentions that disassembly restrictions are unenforcable, but not the
part about modification restrictions).

> I, at least, wouldn't have any idea of what to do with citations of
> previous cases, legal traditions, etc.  (Well, actually, I do, but I
> wouldn't do the research, so it isn't worth the bandwidth).

Some decisions are worse than others (I hate the footnotes).  However,
the citations of previous cases can be interesting, as can discussions
of congressional intent.

Recently four or five copies of the SEA filing in the SEA v. PK
lawsuit were posted in comp.sys.ibm.pc.  This kind of thing really is
worthless.  You'd practically have to be an expert to get useful
information from that - it represents the loony claims of whoever
wrote the filing.  The US Supreme Court and the Circuit Courts of
Appeal are the important ones because the decisions cover the entire
country (circuit decisions are only binding in that circuit, but the
other circuits almost always go along).  I would argue that computer
industry cases from the appellate courts should be included too.

Now does someone have an optical reader or what?  West Publishing and
crew have an monopoly on getting decisions from the court directly from
the court in a useful form (electronically), last I heard.
-- 
James R. Van Artsdalen    ...!uunet!utastro!bigtex!james     "Live Free or Die"
Home: 512-346-2444 Work: 328-0282; 110 Wild Basin Rd. Ste #230, Austin TX 78746