California Labor Law: Here's a Law You May Not have Known…

Sacramento, CAThis is a California Labor Laws story of a different stripe. California labor laws, of course, are there to protect workers from unscrupulous employers who try to take advantage of them. California workers need someone in their corner, and bully to the State of California for enacting laws that protect workers, as well as all citizens by way of a variety of laws and statutes.

However, you should know that while the laws are there to protect and serve, they are also out to get you, in a manner of speaking. If fact, you may have broken California State law simply by consulting California laws on-line, and saving a copy to your computer.

You can't do that, apparently.

There is little doubt that digital versions of California laws and statutes are online for the entire world to see. It's a service to Californians, after all. It's handy. It's what everyone is doing—archiving docs online for instant and easy reference.

Ah, but there is a catch, and it's called copyright. In a nutshell, the State of California claims copyright on all those laws and statutes that are online. You can look at them, pursue them, even jot down a few copious notes on the back of a shopping list to jog your memory later.

However, if you download a copy of the document to your computer, or print off a copy, by law you owe the State of California a fee.

For example, it has been reported that to purchase a digital copy of the California Code of Regulations—which runs 38 volumes—it would cost you $1,556 for the digital version, or $2,315 for a printed copy. The State, according to the California Office of Administrative Law, rakes in just under $900,000 a year by selling its laws.

They could probably make a lot more from people who pirate the files. But then, how would the State police such a thing? Apart from somehow following up on links which might identify your computer as receiving an electronic version of a document, or the invocation of the 'print' command in kind, it is assumed that State regulators would have to raid your home and seize the contents of your computer to prove that you've pirated a document which, essentially, you paid for with your own State tax dollars.

But we digress…

One man is challenging the system. Carl Malamud is a resident of Sebastopol who thinks Californians—indeed, all Americans—should have free and unfettered access to government codes and regulations. To prove his point, he's published online all 38 volumes of the California code, which he physically scanned from paper in order to make available, for free, on his website public.resource.org.

In effect, he's challenging the State of California to come after him.

It's ironic that this stuff is already online elsewhere, and is just a keyword search away.
"Most of the county staff now, just look up the codes on the Internet," said Jennifer Barrett, Sonoma County's deputy planning director. "You can quickly search for keywords or a section. It's quite easy to find what you are looking for."

Meanwhile, here's what the State has to say: "We exercise our copyright to benefit the people of California," said Linda Brown, deputy director of the Office of Administrative Law, which manages the state's laws. "We are obtaining compensation for the people of California."

Just remember all of this, next time your employer suckers you on some issue and you check online to determine your rights according to California State Law in a simple act of defending yourself against a mean-spirited, law-breaker of an employer.

Look, but don't touch. Don't print, copy, paste or acquire digitally no matter what dastardly misdeed your employer has put you through. The State might come to get you, too.

But you can fight back—on both counts—with the help of a California Labor Law attorney.