In the January issue of Searcher, Melissa Barr has a comprehensive review of the state of free online access to statutes and cases in the U.S. While nearly all U.S. states provide these primary sources of law free on state-run web sites, most do not include cases prior to 1995 or so. Moreover, West Publishing (owned by Thomson) and LexisNexis (owned by Reed Elsevier), the two companies that dominate the market for electronic access to primary sources of law, will not sell accounts to public libraries.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 2/02/2003 10:14:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
