Publish Georgia's State Laws, You'll Get Sued For Copyright and Lose (arstechnica.com) 209
Presto Vivace writes: If you want to read the official laws of the state of Georgia, it will cost you more than $1,000. Open-records activist Carl Malamud bought a hard copy, and it cost him $1,207.02 after shipping and taxes. A copy on CD was $1,259.41. The "good" news for Georgia residents is that they'll only have to pay $385.94 to buy a printed set from LexisNexis. Malamud thinks reading the law shouldn't cost anything. So a few years back, he scanned a copy of the state of Georgia's official laws, known as the Official Georgia Code Annotated, or OCGA. Malamud made USB drives with two copies on them, one scanned copy and another encoded in XML format. On May 30, 2013, Malamud sent the USB drives to the Georgia speaker of the House, David Ralson, and the state's legislative counsel, as well as other prominent Georgia lawyers and policymakers. Now, the case has concluded with U.S. District Judge Richard Story having published an opinion (PDF) that sides with the state of Georgia. The judge disagreed with Malamud's argument that the OCGA can't be copyrighted and also said Malamud's copying of the laws is not fair use. "The Copyright Act itself specifically lists 'annotations' in the works entitled to copyright protection," writes Story. "Defendant admits that annotations in an unofficial code would be copyrightable."
Slashdot reader Presto Vivace adds: "It could have been worse, at least he was not criminally charged liked Aaron Schwartz."
Slashdot reader Presto Vivace adds: "It could have been worse, at least he was not criminally charged liked Aaron Schwartz."
Huh? (Score:2)
Slashdot reader Presto Vivace adds: "It could have been worse, at least he was not criminally charged liked Aaron Schwartz."
Aaron Schwartz is a sad case, but what does that have to do with copyrighting public law?
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Aaron Schwartz is a sad case, but what does that have to do with copyrighting public law?
He was publishing public records of cases, which is a similar nonsensical offense to publishing the law.
He was publishing private academic journals (Score:2)
wasn't he? I don't see the connection.
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As far as I can remember he published publicly funded research. Whether or not the results were in a private academic journal is ... actually a good parallel to locking up laws behind paywalls.
It's kind of like standards too. Many standards in the world are mandatory and you can get in trouble for not following them. Not knowing them is not a defence. They were adopted as a requirement by the government whom you pay with taxes, and yet they aren't available to you without an additional charge.
It's all about
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Aaron Schwartz is a sad case, but what does that have to do with copyrighting public law?
TFA isn't about copyrighting public law either. It is about copyrighting ANNOTATIONS AND COMMENTARY. Fake news.
Stop spreading BS. (Score:5, Insightful)
Great, care to point out where those laws are available freely WITHOUT those annotations?
They are simply being used as a vector to allow copyright to be exercised on public information.
Its exactly like adding a copyright page to the front of a public document, and claiming that page is copyright, therefore the whole document is.
The fact is that a public of 'public servants' dont want the general public to have free access to the laws that govern them, and are willling to
spend the publics money to protect the public from knowing their own laws.
Nice, isnt it.
Re:Stop spreading BS. (Score:5, Informative)
Great, care to point out where those laws are available freely WITHOUT those annotations?
Yes, on the public website of the company that published the annotated texts. Here [lexisnexis.com], to be incredibly specific.
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Ehh, that links to a page with Terms and Conditions, which states in many words that the contents of the page are covered by intellectual property rights. Where can you get the laws in full with no terms an conditions?
Re:Stop spreading BS. (Score:5, Informative)
That link goes to a blank page.
The link works fine for me, although it takes about 15 seconds to load. Georgia law is also available for free at the Library of Congress website [loc.gov].
Anyway, TFA is total baloney, and their main point that Georgia is using copyright to restrict access to their laws is false. The summary and headline are even worse. Fake news and garbage journalism, designed to manufacture outrage and generate clicks, rather than inform.
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The link works fine for me ...Georgia law is also available for free at the Library of Congress website [loc.gov].
It links back to the same source. In any case the official version of legislation is, almost by definition, not "also available" elsewhere.
Fake news and garbage journalism, designed to manufacture outrage and generate clicks, rather than inform.
The claim being made is that the official version (i.e. the law) is the annotated version and that consequently you cannot freely access the actual
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An excellent resource, you would think they would promote, that digital reference suite a lot more. Perhaps they don't market because the Republicans would defund it if it proved too useful and a corporation could profit it by taking it over.
Re:Stop spreading BS. (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure. Easily found on the Internet without too much trouble:
http://codes.findlaw.com/ga/
The problems with laws is not that some states make it difficult to know all one should know, which is why hiring a good attorney is your first step, the problem is that there are so many laws, and most have some sort of penalty attached, that it is impossible to know all of them. They are innumerable. A illustrated guide to the law, drawn by a lawyer explains why:
http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=1031
American has become over criminalized. Countless misdemeanors have been elevated to felonies, most with serious fines and jail time. It has been estimated that there are over 5,000 Federal statutory crimes and over 300,000 regulatory laws, and these estimates do not includes the laws and regulations by states and city governments. Today, truly, ignorance of the law is unavoidable. Everyone, at some point during each day, has committed a crime. The laws and regulations have made us all "law breakers".
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thanks for the link, that's some excellent information and discussion
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Terms and Conditions: https://www.lexisnexis.com/ter... [lexisnexis.com]
which include...
"The Content on this Web Site is for your personal use only and not for commercial exploitation"
"You may not use the Content to determine a consumer's eligibility for: (a) credit or insurance for personal, family, or household purposes; (b) employment; or (c) a government license or benefit. "
"You may not copy, modify, reproduce, republish, distribute, display, or transmit for commercial, non-profit or public purposes all or any portion
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the very definition of 'southern hospitality'. you have no right to know the laws we can use AGAINST you if you anger us.
oblig: bless their hearts.
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Free copies? The local public libraries in Ga that are on Ga's library network presently have 1005 copies, and the university libraries have many more.
Here's the free website. It is mandated by Ga law that the free website be provided by the publishers of the annotated code. http://www.lexisnexis.com/hott... [lexisnexis.com]
The statutory text itself is NOT copyrighted according to the Terms and Conditions.
Also, there is supposed to be a copy available in every county courthouse, but I can't verify that.
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Other states do. Like this http://www.le.state.ut.us/Documents/code_const.htm
No need to go to another source, you get the law from the State. No copyrights, no limitations on use. And no having to figure out where else to look. LexisNexis, I thought that was a rather expensive pay site, I wouldn't have thought to look there. I would look at the state's
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So basically if you want to prevent anyone from being able to view a public document, all you have to do is doodle a penis in the margin?
Ignorance of the law is no excuse (Score:5, Interesting)
But do I have to obey laws that I cannot see?
Re:Ignorance of the law is no excuse (Score:4, Interesting)
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I googled it and all that turned up was your post... You're the sixth from the top: "criminal offense not to have $1200 in georgia"
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In the state of Georgia, it's a criminal offense to be poor. Don't believe me? Look it up... Don't have $1200? Off to jail with you!
That's not true. Being poor is not a criminal offense in Georgia.
Here's the official Georgia law, all of it:
http://www.lexisnexis.com/hott... [lexisnexis.com]
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That's not true. Being poor is not a criminal offense in Georgia. Here's the official Georgia law, all of it: http://www.lexisnexis.com/hott... [lexisnexis.com]
Whoosh!
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Seeing as it is a fundamental principle of law that the law must be public and knowable, I would say that you have no obligation to obey Georgia's laws, nor any laws that are so unclear that no one can be confident in what they say.
Unfortunately, I am not the one enforcing the laws - so I would advise you not to take the above advice. Just remember that everything makes more sense when you think of the government as organized crime.
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Google "Georgia OCGA" [google.com] and the first link that comes up is "LexisNexis(r) Custom Solution: Georgia Code Research Tool". Click it [lexisnexis.com] and a "Code of Georgia - Free Public Access" page comes up. Click "I Agree" and you get complete access to the Georgia Code for free. The opinion mentions that Lexis/Nexis is obligated to maintain this free site.
One might argue about the annotations being missing but the opinion shows precedent for those being copyrightable, even for laws.
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it sounds like the "annotations" are fundamental to the law itself and provided by the same legislative organs that made it in the first place.
in other words, if the judge could do his job without the annotations, okay.
it still begs the question why the fuck the annotations are necessary and if they are necessary why they aren't free.
also why the annotations have been marked such a high value for.
Re:Ignorance of the law is no excuse (Score:4, Informative)
it sounds like the "annotations" are fundamental to the law itself and provided by the same legislative organs that made it in the first place.
Annotations are basically collections of court cases, trials, history, and lawyers opinions.
They are not necessary, but they do make arguing a case easier if you have them
There are legal publishing services that make annotations for just about every court system there is. These annotations have been available since forever to lawyers for huge sums. Having these annotations make a lawyers job much easier because now someone else has done your research for you.
However, annotations do not carry the force of law because the previous court cases often conflict with each other and may be decided differently in the future, and annotations will often not have the most recent decisions.
Georgia hired a third party to create and maintain the annotations for Georgia law and add it to the official code as a favor to the people and screw the lawyers.
But it cost boatloads of money to compile and maintain the annotations. How to pay for it? Give the LexisNexis sole publishing rights.
Ga law mandated that the publisher maintain a free web site for the general public. I use it to check on stuff, and it works fine for me.
Wait... bad summary? (Score:5, Insightful)
Isn't the issue over the ANNOTATIONS and not the laws?
What am I missing?
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Isn't the issue over the ANNOTATIONS and not the laws?
What am I missing?
Maybe the state made it impossible to get a copy of the laws without the annotations?
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Isn't the issue over the ANNOTATIONS and not the laws?
What am I missing?
Maybe the state made it impossible to get a copy of the laws without the annotations?
The official Georgia Code is the copyrighted code with the annotations. Anything without the annotations is unofficial.
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Re:Wait... bad summary? (Score:4, Informative)
The official Georgia Code is the copyrighted code with the annotations. Anything without the annotations is unofficial.
They publish an official code with annotations, but the official statutory law with official numbering is available for free online (here [lexisnexis.com]). And the annotations (by law) do not carry the force of law (as that *would* make them uncopyrightable, as the linked decision points out). In short: the summary is not only clickbait, it's actually wrong. GA law is 100% completely free and available to all with no copyright restrictions.
Re:Wait... bad summary? (Score:5, Informative)
And the annotations (by law) do not carry the force of law (as that *would* make them uncopyrightable, as the linked decision points out). In short: the summary is not only clickbait, it's actually wrong. GA law is 100% completely free and available to all with no copyright restrictions.
In Georgia specifically, the situation is complicated and different from other states. (Even Wikipedia has a summary [wikipedia.org].)
Basically, in most states (and for federal law), the "annotations" are compiled references to relevant court cases, other laws, parts of the legislative record related to the law, etc. In almost all cases these are compiled by private businesses and copyrighted, sold to attorneys as a helpful tool. They have no official standing.
Georgia is different. The state of Georgia publishes an official set of annotations for its laws which apparently are maintained by the state (not a private business, as with most other annotated codes). Because of this official publication by the state government, Georgia case law frequently makes reference to the OFFICIAL annotations directly (since they are basically codified directly by the state), whereas in other states and for the federal government, you wouldn't reference the annotations directly (since they aren't official) -- you'd use the annotations to find references that you'd reference instead.
Georgia is a special case here, and it could legitimately be argued that keeping the official codified annotations private is basically keeping a STATE CODIFIED DOCUMENT from the public, which is obviously helpful for people who want to research the law, represent themselves in court, etc. In other states, the annotations are clearly owned by private businesses who compile them. In Georgia, they are an essential part of the official codified law as distributed directly from the state government.
So all those posts claiming this is "fake news" aren't quite right. It's true that you can get the text of Georgia statutes for free. But the state of Georgia here is also providing an official text that accompanies the code, but only for a fee. One could argue that, as an official state resource, it should be made accessible to the public too, like I always hear numerous Slashdot commenters bitching endlessly about how any scientific research with even a tiny percentage of government funding should have its results published freely and accessible for free.
Where are all those Slashdot commenters here yelling about access to government-sponsored documents here?? Instead, we just seem to have a number of modded up comments claiming TFA is "fake news." Sure, there's an argument that the state should be able to copyright its publications, so it's not clear that they should necessarily make it available for free. But the situation in Georgia with the state law is different from most states, making TFA's description *not* a clear-cut case (for or against).
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Maybe the state made it impossible to get a copy of the laws without the annotations?
No, they didn't.
The Agreement requires that Lexis/Nexis provide Georgia's statutes in an un-annotated form on a website that the public can access for free using the Internet. The free public website contains only the statutory text and numbering of the O.C.G.A.
What doesn't have the force of law is copyrightable:
However, the Copyright Compendium makes clear that the Office may register annotations that summarize or comment upon legal materials unless the annotations have the force of law. Only those government documents having the force of law are uncopyrightable.
The annotations etc. are not law, strike one:
The statutory portion of such codification shall be merged with annotations, captions, catchlines, history lines, editorial notes, crossreferences, indices, title and chapter analyses, and other materials pursuant to the contract and shall be published by authority of the state pursuant to such contract and when so published shall be known and may be cited as the "Official Code of Georgia Annotated."
Strike two:
Unless otherwise provided in this Code, the descriptive headings or catchlines immediately preceding or within the text of the individual Code sections of this Code, except the Code section numbers included in the headings or catchlines immediately preceding the text of the Code sections, and title and chapter analyses do not constitute part of the law and shall in no manner limit or expand the construction of any Code section. All historical citations, title and chapter analyses, and notes set out in this Code are given for the purpose of convenient reference and do not constitute part of the law.
Strike three:
Annotations; editorial notes; Code Revision Commission notes; research references; notes on law review articles; opinions of the Attorney General of Georgia; indexes; analyses; title, chapter, article, part, and subpart captions or headings, except as otherwise provided in the Code; catchlines of the Code sections or portions thereof, except as otherwise provided in the Code; and rules and regulations of state agencies, departments, boards, commissions, or other entities which are contained in the Official Code of Georgia Annotated are not enacted as statutes by the provisions of this Act.
Yes, it's a bit odd to have official commentary but they are not building codes incorporated by reference or anything like that. They're just there to help interpret the lawmaker's intention, should there be an ambiguity in the actual law. I think we do it pretty much the same way here.
Agreed, sounds like bullshit. (Score:2)
Beowulf is in the public domain, I can make as many copies of it as I want and re-distribute that to anyone I want.
But, if somebody publishes a copy of Beowulf marked up with annotations and explanations (and copyrights the derivative work), obviously I can't republish that. That's what we're talking about here, right?
Laws are in the public domain, but they aren't GPLed.
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Beowulf is in the public domain, I can make as many copies of it as I want and re-distribute that to anyone I want.
I'm surprised Disney haven't claimed it (and been granted it by all the bodies that matter).
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The annotations are notes by the writers of the law about what the law actually means and judicial decisions about the law. Without them the written law is barely useful.
Like, in the US you have the right to free speech.. except it mostly only counts when dealing with the government, and doesn't protect you at all in some situations, etc.
No, the annotations are by Lexis Nexis (Score:2)
Uhm, no. The annotations are by Lexis Nexis. The laws are written by legislative staffers, the Uniform Law Commission of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) and the American Law Institute, and other authors.
Re:Wait... bad summary? (Score:5, Interesting)
Copyrighting annotations is fine as long as they are truly commentary and have no legal force.
If they do have any legal force, then that's a whole different story.
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Copyrighting annotations is fine as long as they are truly commentary and have no legal force. If they do have any legal force, then that's a whole different story.
They don't have legal force -- they just tell you how to interpret the law as written. That's COMPLETELY different. </sarcasm>
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They don't have legal force -- they just tell you how to interpret the law as written.
Not exactly. It's mostly summary of other court decisions that referenced the law in question. Decisions about a law are not the law itself, and a paragraph description of a decision is the product of the lawyer/legal aide who wrote the description, not the court, so they're copyrightable.
Where we have a problem is lazy judges. When writing their decisions, if they decide to look up other cases via the annotations they should follow the annotation to the actual decision, read it themselves to make sure they
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The codes or guidelines are typically published by various private and professional groups at exorbitant prices. Then they are incorporated into the laws by reference.
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In GA, the 'law' is technically the annotations. Because as anyone who has studied law for at least one semester knows... what is written in law doesn't matter. What matters is how the law is interpreted and enforced based on: common law, precedent/case law, other court rulings/supreme court rulings.
A couple states still have interracial sex/marriage as illegal on the books, but (I hope this is 'obviously') they are not enforceable because of SCOTUS rulings
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But all of the things that make up annotations are matters of public record. The annotations are not the product of creative work, only the compilation of existing public information. And they should not be subject to copyright protection [wikipedia.org].
The same logic was applied by the US Supreme Court to deny copyright protection of phone books.
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The annotations are not the product of creative work, only the compilation of existing public information.
The former does not necessarily follow from the latter. Compiling public information can still be a creative work if, for example, decisions must be made about what information to include in the compilation and what information to exclude.
The same logic was applied by the US Supreme Court to deny copyright protection of phone books.
The denial of copyright protection only applies to the content of the phone book, insofar as there are no creative decisions involved in listing all names, addresses, and phone numbers in alphabetical order.
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decisions must be made about what information to include in the compilation and what information to exclude.
But who is making these decisions? And, since it is the annotated state code that is the official law, are they empowered under the state constitution to make laws?
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But who is making these decisions?
If it's truly just annotations, I would assume that it's the author and/or publisher.
And, since it is the annotated state code that is the official law
That seems to be the open question in this conversation, and I don't personally know the answer. I was only commenting on the statements of yours that I quoted. If these "annotations" are part of the legally binding text, then I absolutely agree that they are part of the law and thus should not be eligible for copyright. If they really are just annotations (e.g. excerpts from court decisions, commentary, etc.), then the boo
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And, since it is the annotated state code that is the official law
No, the annotations are just summaries of other decisions. This is definitely a creative work. Yes, Romeo & Juliet is public domain, but if you write an essay summarizing Romeo & Juliet and its themes, that's your creative work.
I saw this story a year or so back, and if I recall the issue of the "official" copy of the law with annotations was Georgia's way of cutting out the middle man. In most states, various companies like Lexis-Nexis take the state laws and compile their guides to them, providing
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Step 1 - Get a LexisNexis account. You're going to need it.
So, are there any law students here? Is this true?
Yes, every lawyer uses Lexis Nexis (Score:2)
Yeah, Lexis Nexis is a major "go to" source.
Once again I'd like to remind America (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Once again I'd like to remind America (Score:5, Insightful)
I once again submit my petition for a +1 Depressing mod.
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You and your guns (Score:2)
So yeah, sorry. It's a threat. And an empty one at that.
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will last all of 5 minutes against a modern military.
Vietnam and Afghanistan would like a word with you.
And what have they actually accomplished? (Score:2)
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Also Vietnam and Afghanistan would like to speak to you about armed citizens versus modern militaries. Oh and toss in that a large number of our citizens have extensive military training and are far more capable than the armed peasants of Vietnam and Afghanistan. In Vietnam the peasants tied up the US for over a deca
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The modern military that cannot operate within the US.
In addition to not legally operating in the US (which wouldn't actually apply in the case of insurrection, btw), the modern US military entirely depends on its long supply chain, which largely resides in the US (and is thus protected during foreign excursions). This supply chain is very vulnerable and is heavily intertwined with private industry. Defection of US troops aside, the modern military becomes much less impressive when it can't keep its soldiers fed, its vehicles fueled and repaired, its lights on
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Doesn't work anymore (Score:2)
You're gonna have a ruling class. Always. Accept it and
Yes, but... (Score:2)
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https://www.lexisnexis.com/hot... [lexisnexis.com] The GA code is free on LexisNexis
OpenRecordsAct (Score:5, Interesting)
http://legal.gatech.edu/sites/... [gatech.edu]
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Confused (Score:2)
I am sorry, but I really don't understand this.
Laws should be free for anyone to read. They're public.
With that being said, the attached cost might not be defined as "it'll cost you this much to read the set of laws" but as "it'll cost you this much tor read the laws in this particular format". Now the question becomes "are there free alternatives to this data set?"
Analogy: I could take Dante's "Inferno" and publish it as an illustrated interactive electronic format book, with 3D animations and comments and
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Yes, but by "official code" they mean "the official set of annotations we commissioned instead of buying them from a 3rd party." The way it works in most states is multiple private companies hire their own lawyers and legal aides to annotate the state law. That is, to write brief commentary and summaries of other court cases that have been decided about that law. These are obviously very helpful reference materials for judges and state attorneys, too, so the state winds up buying annotated copies of their o
Is Georgia unique in copyrighting its legal code? (Score:2)
Does any other state do this, and if so what legal standing does GA have to copyright the laws it passes?
Corollary question (and no, this is not a begged question): given that ignorance of the law is no excuse, is it constitutional to enforce laws that require a $1000 purchase to read?
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Does any other state do this, and if so what legal standing does GA have to copyright the laws it passes?
TFS and TFA are clickbait. The law is not copyrighted. It's available for free right here [lexisnexis.com].
The way it works in most states is multiple private companies hire their own lawyers and legal aides to annotate the state law. That is, to write brief commentary and summaries of other court cases that have been decided about that law. These are obviously very helpful reference materials for judges and state attorneys, too, so the state winds up buying annotated copies of their own laws from, say LexisNexis. The state
They tried that nonsense up here in Alaska (Score:2)
Edict of government (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Length of copyright on laws ... (Score:2)
Many of the laws were enacted over 95 years ago; 95 years used to be the length of copyright in the USA. So: what can stop anyone from publishing the old laws ? Part of this story centers on "annotations", these are: recent case law; legal opinion; ... that are needed to help understand the laws. Some annotations will be out of copyright, others will still be in copyright. In order to know what ''the law'' is in Georgia you need to be able to read recent laws and recent annotations. It would, however, to be
Confusing (Score:2)
If the facts of the case really match what I've just read, then there is something fundamentally wrong. The text of any law has been produced by public servants, and if we leave out any suspicion of corruption, they are paid for by the tax payers; already for that reason should the text of any law be in the public domain. On top of that, how can you claim to have a society under the rule of law, if that law isn't easily accessible to any member of society? Secret laws don't belong in any society - we can't
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Yes, the text of the law is available for free [lexisnexis.com]. What's not available for free is the annotations to the law, which is commentary, summaries of cases decided about the law, etc. The logic of the guy in TFA is is "Romeo & Juliet is public domain, therefore the Encyclopedia Britannica article on Romeo & Juliet should be public domain."
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If the commentary is also produced by public servants, then it should also be public domain.
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It is not produced by public servants, it is produced by LexisNexis.
Does this mean they're for sale? (Score:2)
Well, when it comes to music copyright, the "owner" of songs has been known to be changed for money. So if the state says the laws are copyrighted does that mean that the copyright can be purchased?
So, would buying them and then charging the sate for every use of them be a way to profit?
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What can you expect from a state settled by criminals? It's hard to find now in the history books, but Georgia was a penal colony early on.
Uhmm pretty much all the original colonies were settled by criminals. Georgia's particular crime was debtors
http://www.ushistory.org/us/5d... [ushistory.org]
So how much revolving debt are you carrying ?
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It was originally supposed to take debtors as colonists and a few hundred were settled in Georgia. Most of the colonists however were tradesmen with skills. It seems the first Governor, General Oglethorpe, had ideas about how to establish a colony and he didn't really want a lot of losers with no skill set. He sold it as a buffer colony against Spaniards in Florida and the idea was to remove a lot of debtors from prisons in England and transplant them there. Oglethorpe was a cagey customer and basically
Re: quick, post it here (Score:3)
It costs money to do anything legally. Even defending yourself I'm court requires time taken off of work and at least bus fair get to the court. A fee to the private companies to read the law is just on top of what one normally does to respect the judicial system.
Besides which, think of the added benefit to the economy and additional tax revenue on this exchange which is used to help support public services from fire and police to public libraries, infrastructure and child protection services. Won't anyone
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i fail to see how that's better/more defensible?
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Well, it's complicated. Some of the annotations are things like trade secrets and such from contractors contributing to and being referenced by construction bills and are very much copyrightable.
I suppose the state could setup a fund and provide copies of the annotated laws for free to citizens of the state and pay the copyright holders out of the fund. Depending on demand that might not be too workable.
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So their casual users are shut out of the "game".
It takes no money at all to put the prepared docs into PDF or similar open formats and distribute them. The IEEE also gets away with this madness as well.
I DO acknowledge that it takes money to assemble and maintain docs, and that's what member and especially VENDOR members (who bought and paid for the standards to begin with) need to do if they want their standards to be openly acknowledged.
This is a publisher's racket, just like academic and college books a
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Distributed copies of any state code are obsolete the next day the legislature is in session. When you want to know if you can legally do X, there has to be an official site where the current code is available.
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