<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>cwkoss</author><text>A similar injustice is that many building codes are privately copyrighted AND enforced by law.</text><parent_chain><item><author>ncphil</author><text>PACER should have been free from the beginning. Gatekeeping legal information for profit (even if only used to supplement appropriations) isn&amp;#x27;t only a problem at the federal level. In many states you need a commercial subscription to even read court opinions and statutes, let alone search. Localities in most places rely on commercial publishers to archive the text of ordinances, which only those with ridiculously expensive subscriptions can access. The digitization of everything had just begun when I retired, but the handwriting was already on the wall. The contrast with the widespread availability of technical doc is staggering: and reminds me of why I changed careers.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>“Free PACER” bill advances through Senate judiciary unanimously</title><url>https://fixthecourt.com/2021/12/free-pacer-bill-advances-senate-judiciary-unanimously/</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>javajosh</author><text>The central dictum of the legal profession: &amp;quot;you will have to pry every piece of the leverage I have over you out of my cold, dead hands.&amp;quot;</text><parent_chain><item><author>ncphil</author><text>PACER should have been free from the beginning. Gatekeeping legal information for profit (even if only used to supplement appropriations) isn&amp;#x27;t only a problem at the federal level. In many states you need a commercial subscription to even read court opinions and statutes, let alone search. Localities in most places rely on commercial publishers to archive the text of ordinances, which only those with ridiculously expensive subscriptions can access. The digitization of everything had just begun when I retired, but the handwriting was already on the wall. The contrast with the widespread availability of technical doc is staggering: and reminds me of why I changed careers.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>“Free PACER” bill advances through Senate judiciary unanimously</title><url>https://fixthecourt.com/2021/12/free-pacer-bill-advances-senate-judiciary-unanimously/</url></story>