Hi, I'd agree that all judgements should be freely accessible by the public, otherwise how can justice seen to be done? I did a simple scraper a while back that shows what's on in court, and it would be great to be able to cross-reference each case with the subsequent outcome, but their copyright notices highlight a somewhat possessive attitude to their data:
http://causelist.org http://www.bailii.org/bailii/copyright.html Cheers, Donny. On 18 June 2011 16:49, Francis Davey <[email protected]> wrote: > 2011/6/18 Matt Wardman <[email protected]>: >> For information, if anyone can pass the news on to those who may be >> interested. >> >> Bailii - the guys who provide the database of Court Judgements among >> other services, has an appeal for funds on after losing a sponsor. >> >> Details here: >> http://www.bailii.org/bailii/appeal.html >> >> Their annual running costs are £160k and they have only a couple of staff. >> >> Personally I find that I use them much as MySociety reference sites. >> > > As a practising lawyer I find them extremely useful as a site, but not > nearly as useful as they might be. Sadly, the existence of bailii > appears to be used as (one of the many) an excuse by the court service > not to make their judgment data properly open. A blog in which I > participate was asked to publicise their quest for funding and we did, > but with a qualification: > > http://nearlylegal.co.uk/blog/2011/06/bailii-needs-your-cash-regularly/ > > The bottom line is, I'd like to think they felt some pressure to be > less stupidly precious about their data - eg not allowing a full RSS > feed of judgments - in return for more support and funding. It would > be a bad thing if they folded, but it would be a much better thing if > they felt they needed to behave better. > > Indirectly I (via several organisations I am a member of) and most > lawyers contribute to bailii (and therefore, so do you our clients) so > I think it is reasonable to ask that they give back more in terms of > opening data up. Not allowing google to spider you is just plain dumb. > > -- > Francis Davey > > _______________________________________________ > developers-public mailing list > [email protected] > https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public > > Unsubscribe: > https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/options/developers-public/donovanhide%40gmail.com > _______________________________________________ developers-public mailing list [email protected] https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public Unsubscribe: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/options/developers-public/archive%40mail-archive.com
