[August, 2006.
This is the home page of the HyperLaw Web Site as it existed in 2002 - correcting only references to phone numbers and addresses.
The site and linked documents and pages are being retained for archival purposes and because there are many links to documents on this site.
HyperLaw established this site using manual coding in the Fall of 1995 prior to the existence of web editing programs such as Front Page and Dreamweaver.
Please check out the home page.]
HyperLaw, Inc. was formed in 1991 to engage in electronic publishing of legal
information. It was the first company to release on CD-ROM opinions of the United States
Supreme Court (1992) and the first to release on CD-ROM opinions of the United States
Courts of Appeals (1993), and at affordable prices. Currently [in 1998], it publishes a CD-ROM with
over 39,000 opinions from the Federal Appellate Courts from 1993 to date and from the US
Supreme Court from 1991 to date. HyperLaw and its founder and President Alan D. Sugarman
are also active in citation reform and opening public access to the law. HyperLaw believes
that the law should be available to the public at prices not inflated by monopolistic
practices and artificial barriers to information maintained by or acquiesced in by the
courts and the other branches of government.
- Posted April 28, 1998. West/Thomson and Reed Elsevier have continued their
transparent behind the scenes lobbying to press forward HR 2652. providing to any
publisher of compilations of any nature a chilling sword to hang over anyone who dares
intrude into their monopolies. See Database Protection for new
information posted today. The purpose of the bill -- to provide copyright-like protection
to unoriginal compilations that do not meet the standards of originality and creativity
required under the Copyright Act and the Constitution. The bill as marked up over six
weeks ago has yet to appear on Thomas, and we have posted a PDF version together with the
remarkable witness statements at the last hearing in February. [The Subcommittee did not
even respond to HyperLaw's written request to testify at that hearing]. It seems that in
order to move the bill forward, an amendment has been inserted that exempts out telephone
listing databases prepared by telephone companies. This is a perfect example of what is
wrong with the bill which is the anti competitive protection of sole source databases --
except for telephone listing information who were threatened and were at the lobbying
table. Every single professor/economist who testified for the bill recognized that sole
source databases represented anti-competitive threats. So, users of telephone listings now
are protected. But what about those who wish to republish information like sports scores,
television listings, stock prices, statutory codifications prepared by private companies,
court opinions databases, and who know what else. The bill further is so imprecise as to
what constitutes a database -- let's wait and see. We know in HyperLaw's litigation with
West, West once had taken the position that a single court opinion is a compilation and no
doubt will argue that a single court opinion with the addition of parallel citations is a
database, so one volume of a West Reporter will be a database, as well as each case in the
volume. The Bill also now provides a variety of naive exemptions about use by libraries
and not-for-profits, forgetting of course that commercial publishers sell to libraries and
universities, and that the cost of information to these entities will increase if
commercial publishers are unable to gain access to the information. Those who do
litigation for a living should visualize the position you will be in if called to defend a
case brought by a mega-monopolist publisher. This is an unfair bill. One really cute
provision: if a court finds that a mega-publisher has brought an action in bad faith
against a non-profit entity, then the court may award costs and fees, but, if the
mega-monopolists jumps on a small competitor in bad faith, then the court is not permitted
to award fees and costs. This bill is all about chilling competition from smaller
competitors who want to take advantage of the new economics of publishing with low fixed
costs.
- Posted February 13, 1998. Reply Brief For Defendant
Appellants West Publishing Company, January, 1998. -- Second Circuit Text Appeal. PDF
Format.
January 30, 1998 Update. The silence on this page reflect the
relative lack of activity. HyperLaw has three appeals pending relating to the efforts of
Thomson, West, and Reed Elsevier to monopolize and control the dissemination of court
opinions in the United States. We will be "filling" in the gaps during the next
few weeks, so, please check back in.
The first appeal before the Second Circuit is the so-called "Citation
Appeal", essentially seeking the explicit overruling of the notorious 1986 West
v. Mead decision in the Eighth Circuit. Matthew Bender and HyperLaw are co-appellants in
that appeal. The appeal was to have been argued on January 5, 1998, but, a district court
judge assigned to the panel in effect recused herself, after a motion for recusal filed by
Matthew Bender had been filed. The argument for this appeal has not been rescheduled as of
February 13, 1998.
The second appeal in that same case is the so-called "Text Appeal",
relating to West's overarching claims in the copyright of court opinions. That appeal has
been full briefed. HyperLaw is the sole appellant in that appeal. Reed Elsevier has filed
an amicus brief supporting West-Thomson. Matthew Bender had been expected to file an
amicus brief supporting HyperLaw's position and rebutting the database protection type
arguments contained in the Reed Elsevier brief, but, on the afternoon that briefs were to
be filed, HyperLaw learned that (1) Times Mirror had announced that it was going to sell
Matthew Bender and (2) Matthew Bender would not file the amicus brief. Reed Elsevier and
Matthew Bender through a joint-venture own Shepards. The argument for this appeal has not
been scheduled either as of February 13, 1998..
The third appeal is an appeal in the United States Court of appeals of the decision of
the District Court of the District of Columbia arising out of the Tunney Act proceeding in
affect sanctioning the merger of West and Thomson. HyperLaw filed its brief yesterday,
January 29, 1998. HyperLaw argues that the District Court has essentially vitiated the
Tunney Act. Given the events in the last two years including the acquisition of CCH by
Wolters Kluwer, the announced merger of Wolters Kluwer to Reed Elsevier, and the sale of
Matthew Bender (most likely to Wolters Kluwer), the reactivation of federal antitrust
activity in Microsoft featuring Gary Reback whose client Lexis lured unsuspecting
librarians and publishers to support what turned out to be a renegotiation of Lexis's
"business agreements" with West and Thomson, the firing of top executives at
Lexis, the soaring of prices charged by West and Thomson, the closing of Michie's offices
in Charlottesville (Michie being the company that took over the "divested"
product from West and Thomson in a DOJ sanction bulk deal), the closure by West of its
Westbury, New York office, the termination of numerous jobs by Thomson in Rochester New
York, the settlement of the citation case pending in the Eighth Circuit just days before
the Circuit was to render an opinion, the refusal of the United States Judicial Conference
to clean up its house as relates to public domain citations and dissemination of district
court opinions, etc., etc., provides a new landscape for the District of Columbia Circuit
to scrutinize how the Justice Department leaned over to approve the merger, supported by
State attorney General's like NY's Dennis Vacco who must be proud of all the jobs lost in
NY as a result of this merger. Of course, there is also the consolidation in legal
newspaper publishing with the American Lawyer and its local papers under common ownership
with the National Law Journal. One may also observe that West-Thomson and Reed-Elsevier,
who have now joined forces to foist a number of monopolistic intellectual property laws on
the unsuspecting, are the largest advertiser for those legal newspapers. Following is the
HyperLaw brief filed yesterday.
- See new postings October 30, 1997 and October 31, 1997 on Database
Protection Page.
- HyperLaw Observations re Database Bill H.R. 2652 October 23, 1997.
A hearing was held on October 23, 1997 by The Subcommittee On Courts And Intellectual
Property, House Committee On The Judiciary, Concerning H.R 2652 Collections Of Information
Antipiracy Act. HyperLaw made available at the hearing a 13 page document containing
observations about the database protection bill. A member of the subcommittee staff
provided a copy to the Chairman who read the first three paragraphs into the record and
said that the statements were completely incorrect, and that the bill was not on a fast
track. Apparently there were a series of "miscommunications" that led us and
many others in Washington to conclude that the bill was on a fast track, especially
because of the short period between the introduction of the bill and the hearing. We are
happy to hear that further hearings will be held in January. As to the other statements in
the first three paragraphs, we stand by their accuracy and note that the Chairman did not
identify which of the other statements were inaccurate. Of the three witnesses who
supported the bill, one was Laura Tyson who was there on behalf of Thomson and Reed
Elsevier. A second witness testified on behalf of the so called Coalition Against Database
Piracy. Thomson and Reed Elsevier were two of the founding members and one could conclude
formed the Coalition. Enough said.
- West Files Appellate Brief on September 29, 1997 in Second Circuit in HyperLaw v.
West on the Copyrightability of the Text of Court Opinions HyperLaw v. West.Available in 1.4 MB PDF File As expected, the brief takes enormous
liberties with the facts. The HyperLaw response is due in 30 days. A motion for filing an
amicus brief in opposition to the West brief must be filed with the amicus brief within
the 30 day period. HyperLaw's observations concerning the status of
the case, September 30, 1997, as posted on CNI-Copyright. .
- September 29, 1997. Reed Elsevier seeks to file Amicus Brief --
Motion with Brief Reed Elsevier had filed a motion to submit an amicus brief in
HyperLaw v. West in support of West's claims to the copyright of text of court opinions.
The amicus brief notes that Reed Elsevier's stock had fallen as a result of the district
court's May ruling in support of HyperLaw's position. Reed Elsevier also quotes from the
database protection report of the Copyright Office. Reed Elsevier's latest position,
supporting the copyrightability of the text of court opinions is just one more
illustration of the phenomena of "Wexis", the anticompetitive consortium between
West and Lexis which resulted from the 1988 secret agreements between West and Mead
(former owner of Lexis). In addition, this latest action demonstrates the naivete of the
Antitrust Division and State Attorney Generals who relied upon Lexis to express the
public's interests during the negotiations to approve the acquisition of West by Thompson.
The motion and brief are contained in a 990 KB PDF file.
- New September 30, 1997. Judicial Conference Summary Report on
Citation Reform The Judicial Conference has refused to adopt the ABA Citation
Proposal, but oddly suggested that the courts establish a central database of opinions. Of
course, central to the practicality of any immediately available citation would be
archives of opinions which include the authoritative text as well as a means to identify
the opinion on an electronic database. Since is it not unusual for their to be more than
one opinion in a single matter, the use of a docket number alone will not suffice. Also,
as the courts will readily find, in order to maintain assurance that a database is
complete, some type of identifying number must be applied to each document. Central to
anything the judicial conference does is to establish a rule that the official version of
a court's opinion is that as filed in the docket of the court. That would mean that all
corrections be implemented by an order, or that a revised version of all opinions be filed
on the docket. Amazing at it may sound, most federal courts do not do this, and some even
revise opinions and make the revised versions available on the internet, without filing
the revised version and using the same file name as the initial opinion before revision.
And, with the current methodology, there is no way without a sequence number to determine
if one has a full set of opinions. A log file derived from a listing of files in a
directory is going to never identify if a file is accidentally overwritten or deleted.
Let's face it -- in 1997, this is plain stupidity and it is not exactly brain surgery. If
dentists are doctors who cannot stand blood, then judges must be doctors who cannot put on
a Band-Aid. Thus, the only authoritative version ends up being the West version. Got it?
Guess not. Anyway, following the judge centric view of the world, they will create a
centralized database in Acrobat format which will make reuse of the opinions highly
expensive, and, moreover, one will not be able to wholesale download say a whole year of
opinions. Why, because then a non-government disseminator could compete for the government
bureaucrat's job of making the opinions available. The same mind set blindness occurs with
the law school attempts to provide web sites of opinions: some do not permit wholesale
downloads via FTP. In the meantime, let us understand a central issue. Since August of
1993, all 13 Courts of Appeals have made electronic versions of their opinions available
on BBS's or the Internet. But, of the 94 district courts, only 2 or 3 make electronic
opinions available to the public, even though the court's have their internal databases.
This is a scandal and shame on the federal judiciary for keeping the public from having
access to this existing public asset. Maybe Senator Grassley has a point.
- May 21, 1997
- HyperLaw Wins Another Round -- West Cannot
Copyright so-called enhanced versions of court opinions
- Jol Silversmith
"Universal Citation: The Fullest Possible Dissemination of Judgments." College
Hill Internet Legal Practice Newsletter, May 19, 1997. This is an excellent
comprehensive discussion of the citation issues, written by a third year student at
Harvard Law School. We assume it received an A+. The article discusses many of the
articles appearing on this WEB site and some we had not seen, and, indeed credits this
site as an excellent archive. The article cites again John B. West's 1909 article, which
HyperLaw "discovered" in 1995 and introduced into the citation debate.
NEW
Friday, March 21, 1997
HyperLaw Letter to Hon Richard Posner, Seventh Circuit Re ABA
Citation Proposal, March 21, 1997
NEW Friday, March 14, 1997
HyperLaw Comments to the U.S. Judicial Comments Re Citation: March
14, 1997
NEW Friday, March 14, 1997
Department of Justice Comments to the U.S. Judicial Comments Re
Citation: March 14, 1997
NEW Tuesday, March 11, 1997
Report on Oasis v. West (8th Cir) 3/10/97 Oral Argument
NEW Wednesday, February 26, 1997
Proposed Technical Standards for Electronic Filing in the Federal
Courts -- Administrative Office of United States Courts December 20, 1996, Notice of
Hearing of Judicial Conference for hearing on public domain citation, and information
concerning efforts in Norway and Canada relating to access to the law.
NEW Wednesday, February 26, 1997
More new news articles re DOJ v. Thomson/West and HyperLaw v. West
NEW Friday, February 21, 1997
New Filings in DOJ v. Thomson/West
NEW February 15, 1997
Transcript - Conference before Judge Friedman, February 6, 1996 --
USA v. Thomson, 96 CV 1415, USDC District of Columbia Judge Friedman raises further
questions, criticizes Department of Justice, objects to provisions in new license
agreement proposal, objects to divesture to Lexis, and invites HyperLaw to file an
expanded motion to intervene.
- HyperLaw Comments Re West Spin Control Press Release -- Judge
Friedman Ruling - December 26, 1996
- COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT OF NOVEMBER 26, 1996 HEARING
- "HyperLaw Comments: DATABASE PROTECTION -- TILTING THE
COPYRIGHT BALANCE - I, November 18, 1996 and related information"
- HyperLaw Summary Judgment Reply Brief in Matthew Bender/HyperLaw
v. West 94 Civ. 0589, U.S.D.C. S.D.N.Y., November 4, 1996.
- Alan D. Sugarman Summary Judgment Affidavit in Matthew
Bender/HyperLaw v. West 94 Civ. 0589, U.S.D.C. S.D.N.Y., November 4, 1996.
NEW OCTOBER 16, 1996.
- HyperLaw Amicus Curiae Brief October 16, 1996
NEW OCTOBER 14, 1996.
- DOJ Response to Comments -- September 23, 1996
A Word Perfect For Windows Version may be found at DOJ's Site: "United States v.
Thomson Documents" DOJ did not include a copy of the cross-reference table
included in the version filed in court which purported to permit correlation between the
comments filed prior to September 3, 1996 and the DOJ response. NEW OCTOBER 10,
1996.
- HyperLaw October 10, 1996 Letter to DOJ requesting that DOJ make
available to the public, as required by the Tunney Act, documents on which the proposed
consent decree is based.
This letter includes a discussion of the 1988 Secret License Agreements between West and
Lexis which are the counterpoints to DOJ's Proposed License Agreement for everyone else.
Included is language from 1976 and 1988 complaints. NEW OCTOBER 10, 1996.
- HyperLaw Request to DOJ to file an Amicus Brief concerning West
claims to the copyright of the text of judicial opinions
This request was denied by DOJ on October 3, 1996.
NEW OCTOBER 9, 1996.
- HyperLaw Motion Re DOJ Failure to Comply With Publication in DOJ
v. West-Thomson, September 30, 1996
This motion was granted in part by an order of Judge Friedman on October 9, 1996.
HyperLaw's Response is due October 16, 1996. The Government's Response is due October 23,
1996. NEW OCTOBER 7, 1996.
Transcript - Hearing, September 30, 1996 -- USA v. Thomson, 96 CV
1415, USDC District of Columbia
Updated October 7, 1996
HyperLaw, Lexis-Nexis, AALL, CD-LAW, Inc., Taxpayer Assets Project Final Comments to DOJ,
September 3, 1996
"DOJ Antitrust Review of Thomson/West Merger Page"
This page contains important new information concerning the Thomson/West merger and the
hearing before the United States District Court held September 30, 1996. There is a link
to the proposed Consent Order, the proposed compulsory License Agreement, the docket, the
1995 DOJ-Microsoft DC Circuit Opinion, and HyperLaw's analysis of the weakness of the
settlement,the proposed license agreement, and comment filed on September 3, 1996 by a
variety of parties.
HyperLaw, Inc.
HyperLaw, Inc. was formed in 1991 to engage in electronic publishing of legal
information. It was the first company to release on CD-ROM opinions of the United States
Supreme Court (1992) and the first to release on CD-ROM opinions of the United States
Courts of Appeals (1993), and at affordable prices. Currently, it publishes a CD-ROM with
over 39,000 opinions from the Federal Appellate Courts from 1993 to date and from the US
Supreme Court from 1991 to date. HyperLaw and its founder and President Alan D. Sugarman
are also active in citation reform and opening public access to the law. HyperLaw believes
that the law should be available to the public at prices not inflated by monopolistic
practices and artificial barriers to information maintained by or acquiesced in by the
courts and the other branches of government.
HyperLaw, Inc.
PO Box 1176, New York, NY 10023 [Changed to 17 West 70th Street, Suite 4, New York, NY 10023]
212-787-2812 [changed to 212-873-1371 in 2004]
212-496-1438 [changed to 212-202-3524 in 2004]
info@hyperlaw.com
