Public Records, Private Profits
On Sunday, Marcia Oddi at the Indiana Law Blog had coverage of the editorial in the Evansville Courier Press about Vanderburgh’s move to Doxpop, LLC for posting court case tracking information on the internet.
I think Marcia has the situation summed up very well in the following:
Re the question posed in the editorial: “Should a private firm be able to earn a profit off public records that the state itself seeks to make available online for free?” Why not? What is the difference between this situation and the Indiana Opinions, which the Court makes available online to the public, but which private companies such as West Publishing and Lexis also access directly from the Court and publish for their own subscribers in a number of enhanced formats? It is the public itself who will decide whether the free version is adequate to its needs, or whether it needs to purchase West’s or Lexis’ enhancements. The same should be the case for Doxpop and any other company wishing to access the data stream from the Monroe County case management system.
Today, BoingBoing’s Cory Doctorow notes a comment by Carl Malamud on the US Judiciary’s recent refusal to accept the offer of Public.Resource.org to supply the courts with online access to the courts’ own historic records - something that they pay West Publishing or Lexis vast sums of money for. (link to letter from US Courts Administrator). In my view, the situation at the federal level mirrors what is happening in Indiana: The court administration objects to private companies making money off providing access to public records while while charging fees and generating cash to runs its own system. At the same time the courts grant West Publishing immediate access to court decisions, and specifying that West’s reporter is the “official record” of the courts’ reported decisions, basically locking all of us attorneys into paying West’s premium to cite cases. Malamud’s comments:
Some days, the U.S. government truly astounds. At Public.Resource.Org, we released 50 years of decisions of the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Knowing that the U.S. Courts have to pay big bucks to West Law and Lexis/Nexis to access their own archives, we though they might be interested in having their very own copy. So, we asked how we could maybe get a phone call to discuss making a donation of case law. Instead of a phone call, the general counsel of the courts (how’s that for a meta position!) sent me a letter saying that while this would be great for the public he saw no benefit to the judiciary and our gift offer was hereby declined. (Not only does the Judiciary spend big bucks on legal information services, this is the same group that runs the billion-dollar IT boondoggle called PACER, which mandates that the public pay $0.08/page for court documents even though they have $146.6 million in unspent funds in their computer account they can’t even figure out what to do with.)
April 11th, 2008 16:16
“Should a private firm be able to earn a profit off public records that the state itself seeks to make available online for free?”
Free online public records? The Indiana Supreme Court with the continued approval by Indiana legislators will cost cash strapped Hoosier taxpayers over $100 million to make public records “free” using their Odyssey internet based system supported by millions of dollars per year of tax consuming jobs and with no interface with the other 87 counties that already have a CMS.
Taxpayers did not have to pay for the doxpop.com system which has served the public since 2002 (pioneered by Monroe County). Rather, the private sector that benefits from public court information supports the total cost of development and the ongoing operations of the statewide doxpop.com public access system.
Fair Competition? There can be NO fair competition when the Indiana Supreme Court is allowed to continue to spend millions of dollars of taxpayer money every year in a deliberate effort to eliminate the competitive private sector marketplace in Indiana that has already provided Hoosier counties, the public and other state/federal agencies with a safe, secure and stable statewide system of court information with statewide sharing. Taxpayers in 87 counties have already paid for a statewide CMS supplied by the competitive private marketplace.
This tremendous taxpayer burden does not factor the additional cost and risks associated with an internet based system like the Indiana Supreme Court’s Odyssey internet based system. The Odyssey internet based system will increase the risk of exposing a person’s confidential personal and court information to unauthorized persons because local counties using the Odyssey internet based system must transact confidential information over the commercial internet system and store this information with the Indiana Supreme Court in Indianapolis, IN.
Also, who at the state level has access to view, update or even delete a county’s data that is stored by the Indiana Supreme Court in Indianapolis?
With the Supreme Court and judges trying to collect court data from every county in Indiana that includes a history of all juvenile and other confidential court records, is our system of blind justice a thing of the past?
When there is a security breach, loss of data or a shutdown that affects every county on the shared Odyssey internet based system, who will voters blame and hold responsible for any debacle? Will it be the locally elected leaders or the un-elected people at the State?
In 2006, House Bill 1304 co-sponsored by the Honorable Dick Dodge and Honorable Eric Koch with the endorsement of the Association of Indiana Counties would have provided a democratic voice and vote on the necessity to tax Hoosiers over $100 million for a risky, redundant and unnecessary replication of software to manage local trial court information. Unfortunately, democracy was denied.
And, Why? To get a system that was not and is still not ready for Indiana?
June 30th, 2008 21:22
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