mr. malamud. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. ranking member and thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. i'm the founder of public.resource.org, a nonprofit that which government databases that everybody agrees our public. on the internet and then works closely with government to help them improve their own operations. i am responsible for placing the fcc edgar and use patent databases on the internet for the first time. public resource have put all the historical opinions of u.s. court of appeals on the internet for the first time. we worked with speaker boehner and chairman issa to put a full archive of video from the house oversight committee, and 14,000 hours of additional hearings online. i would like to highlight three key points. first, there's a fundamental principle of our democracy. the rule of law, that states if we are to be an employer of laws and not of men we must publish government for all to know. because ignorance of the law is no excuse, and an informed citizenry must educate itself on its rig

mr. malamud i am assuming you agree with the southern building code case? >> absolutely. >> what about the circuit cases we have the amicus brief that were discussed one is the ama code the other was the red book and in those instances the courts found there was copyright protection so what is your opinion? do you agree with the outcome? >> i am not a lawyer but just a citizen but my take is that decision was about a crucial public safety code inc. into the law. worthy of their cases were about medical codes that needed to be used by doctors to the it was the distinguishing factor that the extent the public safety was at stake. looked at the building codes they begin with this sample ordinance we the people of certain name of jurisdiction in do so by adopt this kozo it is meant to be the of what. that is the difference between those cases. >> so you think the government could have been administrative scheme or program that something is referenced if it is a red book you see the distinction between those situations and one in which the of law is adopted verb

mr. chairman. malamud i am assuming that you agree with the southern building code case. >> absolutely. >> what about the two circuit cases -- we have the brief here that we will discuss -- involving the one was the ama code and the other was the used car read a book -- red book. the court found her copyright protections. what is your opinion on that? do you agree on the outcome? >> i am not a lawyer, just a citizen. my take on that is that the decision was about a crucial public safety code that had been incorporated into the law. the other cases were about medical codes that needed to be used by authors. to me, it was the distinguishing -- the distinguishing factor was the extent of public safety was at stake and if you look at the building codes they all began with a sample ordinance of incorporation. the people of insert name of jurisdiction here to do adopt this code. it was meant to be the law. to me, that is the difference between the cases. >> so you think it does, just the fact that government has

mr. carl malamud, president of public -- strike that, public resource organization. mr. malamud founded the nonprofit in order to work on the publication of public domain information for the local, state and federal government agencies. mr. malamud received his mba degree from indiana university kelly school of business. welcome you all. and mr.-- our first witness will be mr. nimmer. it's good to have of all of you with us. lady and gentlemen, if you could confine your statements to on or about five minutes. there's a panel on your desk. when the from the turns to amber, clock begins ticking. you're coming up upon five minutes which will appear when the red light illuminates. and we try to apply the five minute rule to ourselves as well. so during questioning if you could be as courteous as possible, that would be appreciative. mr. nimmer, if you will kick ball, good to have all of you with us. >> thank you so much, mr. chairman. and thank you to all the members of the committee for the invitation to testify this morning. we gather to consider the scope of the rights tha