Going to the Supreme Court

• Previously in this series:
• Being sued
• Rettspraksis.no returns
• Supreme Court appeal

Who owns the law? The question was recently posed in a New York Times editorial. The American context is the lawsuit against Public.Resource.Org for having published the laws of Georgia. The US Supreme Court will now hear the case and NYT suggests a conclusion: The law belongs to the people.

Lovdata's case against Rettspraksis.no in Norway is very similar. Rettspraksis.no has been sued by Lovdata for having published Norwegian Supreme Court decisions. Later this month, the Norwegian Supreme Court will hear the case.

In both Norway and the US, laws and other legal documents are exempted from copyright. Still, somehow, certain organizations have achieved de facto monopoly positions and they act aggressively against attempts to share these legal documents. It is therefore necessary that the courts themselves step up to ensure that the exemption is real, and not effectively undermined by cleverly constructed paywalls.

If you happen to be in Oslo, Norway on August 20/21, you have a chance to follow the Norwegian case in person. We hope that the Court will conclude as the NYT did: the law and Supreme Court decisions which interpret and give meaning to the law belong to the people!

More about our case, in Norwegian.