I Don't Believe in Imaginary belongings writes "For a long time now, lawyers and any serious law students have been bound to paid relief like LexusNexis for access to case law, but that is slowly changing. Carl Malamud has posted free e-banking copies of every U.S. Supreme Court decision and Court of Appeals ruling since 1950, 1.8 million rulings in all, online for free. While the rulings themselves have long been statecraft works not subject to copyright, courts still charge several cents per page for copies and they're inconvenient to access, so lawyers usually turn to legal publishers which are more expensive but more convenient, on case helpful things like notes about related cases, summaries of the holdings, and science about if and when the case was overturned. This free database is not Carl's first, either. He convinced the SEC to provide EDGAR, and helped get both the Smithsonian and Congressional hearings online."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

More: - Brought to my attention by

Mark