2011/7/3 Mark Goodge <[email protected]>: > [Also posted on the Judgmentals list] > > Alongside my request for information on the relationship between the MoJ and > Bailii, I submitted a near-identical one about that between HMCTS and > Courtel for the information published on the courtserve.net website. This > has now[1] been answered: > > http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/information_provided_to_courtel > > Executive summary: Courtel have exclusive access to the data (including an > explicit commitment by HMCTS not to publish the lists on their own website), > but aren't paying anything for it despite the fact that they charge for > end-user access. Also, they appear to be in breach of their licence > agreement with HMCTS by not allowing members of the public to subscribe to > their services.
As you say, this is extremely poor. HMCTS are getting no money from it and plenty of us (I am sure) would be happy to create open websites that published the information if we were given it for free. Worse, as I have said elsewhere, I recently called a court (Croydon County Court) to check a listing I was appearing in and they pointed me at the Courtel site. That's a new response. When I started practice they'd just give me the answer. For all sorts of reasons obvious to people on this list, that's a bad trend if its generalises. Hopefully the present government can be persuaded to do something about it. It strikes me that a political, rather than technical or legal, solution may be the best way to approach it. The present government ought to be psychologically in favour of getting rid of exclusive arrangements, especially where they bring in no revenue. -- 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/archive%40mail-archive.com
