Lawsuit #2 in Our Fight to Keep the Law Free

a map of the 50 united states, with hotspots for upcodes users
We serve over 700,000 users every month from all over the US
“The law is in the public domain, and the public must be afforded free access to it.”
Judge Victor Marrero (ICC v. UpCodes, 2020)

Context

We’ve taken a major step forward to keeping law in the public domain. After three years of litigation in the lawsuit ICC brought against UpCodes for posting law, Judge Victor Marrero released a Decision stating firmly that “...the I-Codes as Adopted are in the public domain, because they are in fact enacted state and local laws binding on the enacting jurisdictions' constituents.” This is a major victory for the industry - no one will own the laws that bind us.

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A New Lawsuit

In what appears to be a Plan B to prevent people from posting the law, ICC launched a second lawsuit against UpCodes just nine days after the Court Decision was released. We view this lawsuit as an abuse of the legal system to further squash innovation.

They are suing us because we "claim that the copies of the codes they offer are, e.g., accurate, completed, and up-to-date".

In this new lawsuit, ICC pointed out fewer than two dozen issues from UpCodes' 1,000,000+ sections of law we host (which were promptly fixed).

Conversely, we’ve found over 400 sections in NYC, Florida, Washington and many other states that either have errors or are not fully up-to-date on the ICC site. While ICC claims their database is accurate and up-to-date, they in fact show a dangerous neglect for keeping their code up-to-date. This highlights the dangers in having a single entity act as the gatekeeper to the law. We need new technology and innovation to keep up with the growing complexity and demands of the codes.

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Path Forward

Since the origin of UpCodes, we’ve invested heavily in building new tech to vet the accuracy of the data. We’ve collaborated with government agencies across the country to help identify errors in the original law documents and have them fixed. This has been a harmonious and constructive collaboration between a tech company and government bodies.

Through legal intimidation, ICC has attempted to create a stranglehold on the laws. We will continue to fight back in this second suit and reject ICC’s tactics.

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How You Can Help

Share with your network: If you believe in this cause as well, please share this page or the TechCrunch article with your network. Or share our tweet. The more people who are aware of ICC's actions, the less they'll get away with this.

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