[user3939382]

> the public should not have to pay to read the law

This goes back to Hammurabi. These decisions are the law. We pay tax dollars to create all this and even if we didn’t, if we’re held to these rulings we need to be able to read them.

[qingcharles]

Statutes are free by law. There was a case a few years ago that definitively affirmed this. A lot of counties and municipalities have zoning laws and building codes, but they don't have staff to write them, so they buy stock model codes from a corporation that writes them. These venues were then telling their citizens they couldn't give them a free copy, they had to buy them.

Someone got sued for copyright infringement for giving away a copy of the statues, but they ultimately won.

See e.g., Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc. (2020) & Veeck v. Southern Building Code Congress Int'l (5th Cir. 2002).

[derektank]

Case law is real law in a common law system. Parent is absolutely correct to point out that without access to court records, the public does not have a complete understanding of the law. Statutes only provide you the full picture in a civil law system.

[qingcharles]

Agreed, e.g. case law provides interpretation of statutes to clarify their meaning. I just wanted to point out that the free-as-in-beer nature of statutes has been completely clarified, whereas case law and court records continue in some murky grey zone.