Other WorldLIIs - A modestly decentralised proposal for global free access

1. Other WorldLIIs - A modestly decentralised proposal for global free access Graham Greenleaf Co-Director AustLII / WorldLII / HKLII

2. Need for ‘global free access’ • Who needs free access to global law? • Developing countries • Comparative law research is essential to development of legal infrastructure • Law libraries and fee services are impossible • Developed countries • Law librarians, students, international trade lawyers etc • To ‘raise the bar’ for what commercial services must offer • For countries and subjects beyond commercial services • Law as part of the cyberspace commons • Essential law / ‘public legal information’ can be cooperatively provided as part of a global commons

3. Relationships • LIIs and levels of access to free law • Relationships between LIIs • LIIs and government services • LIIs and commercial publishers

4. Levels of access to free law How to provide global access to free law? • Cooperating high quality law sites • Standards-based shared search results • Distributed searches (search brokering) • Sites excluding spiders but accepting searches • ‘Websearch’ - web-spider-based searches • Dedicated ‘law only’ search engines • Extracting law from generic search engines • Sites / data only accessible via catalogs • Sites excluding web spiders • Dynamically generated pages with no fixed URLs • Page formats / files types resistant to web spiders

5. Connecting LIIs by searches • Aims: consolidated and ranked search results from participating LIIs • + Limited scope searching across LIIs • Methods of achieving this • Centralised primary location of databases • Replication of databases or of concordances only • File syncronisation or web spider methods • Distributed real-time searches • Model proposed at Cornell LII Conference 2000 • Multi-location of databases/concordances • Model proposed by AustLII 2002

6. WorldLII involves all of these • Centralised primary location of databases • Databases hosted on WorldLII • Centralised replication of databases • AustLII, currently BAILII and HKLII, some LII • PacLII, likely to continue due to access speeds • Centralised replication of concordances only • Possibly BAILII or HKLII if no multi-location • Distributed real-time searches • CanLII

7. Inter-LII hypertext links • Aim - Citations to cases or statutes on any one participating LII will link to any other LII • (I) A central ‘Distributed Citation Resolver’ • Proposed at Cornell LII Conference, 2000 • Dynamically generated links and multiple citations • (II) Shared data structures and markup • Partly implemented by WorldLII participants • Embedded links to single citation • Both approaches benefit from shared comparative case citation tables • LIIs cooperating to build these citators

8. What is WorldLII? • Access to a cooperating set of LII databases • 250+ from AustLII, CanLII, BAILII, PacLII, HKLII, the LII • English language and common law emphasis as yet • A growing LII in its own right - part of the set • Databases of international courts and tribunals • Databases from Asian developing countries • An ‘incubator’ of independent LIIs • South African and East Timor potential • A global law catalog and websearch facility • WorldLII Catalog - 15,000+ law sites • One interface to this data set • Interfaces in languages other than English needed

9. WorldLII’s research universe

10. Other WorldLIIs? • Hypothesis: • WorldLII is a hub of one set of LIIs • EqualLII is another (FrancLII?? MondialLII??) • Both WorldLII and EqualLII are interfaces to all the data, and ‘hubs’ for some of it • Other-worldLII’s can exist …. … but may not need to

12. Modestly decentralised? … • A small number of interconnected ‘hubs’ with a regional / linguistic / national basis • Hubs coordinate groups of participating LIIs • Attention to interface etc needs of those participants and their user communities • Very distributed data maintenance responsibilities • More decentralised over time as more LIIs emerge • Global load balancing and redundancy reduces the de/centralisation distinction • LIIs still only cover a modest part of the free law universe …

13. Free law beyond the LIIs • Search brokering (to non-LIIs) • No serious efforts yet. Impossible? • Dedicated (law only) websearches • Google etc rank differently, reach differently • Commercial websearches can be compromised - an alternative is needed • Ability to limit scope of searches eg to legislation • Catalogs / indexes of law sites • Collaborative development is the only future • Multi-lingual development is necessary • Not ODP amateurism, but LII professionalism

14. LIIs and government services • ‘Official’ systems are good but not enough • State systems often fail, are sold, or are 3rd rate • Even when they are excellent, they do not do everything • Independent systems give different value-adding • Universities are most likely free-access alternative • Full free access requires choice of providers • Two simultaneous approaches for LIIs • Keep insisting on independent access to source data • Government services as WorldLII participants? • an interim measure?

15. Free ‘v’ commercial publishers • What are commercial legal publishers? • Are LII’s here to stay? • Relationships between LIIs and publishers?

16. What are commercial legal publishers? • No such thing as a local legal publisher • Kluwer / Reed-Elsevier / Thomson oligopoly • The occupying foreign powers of Australian law • Only owners of many primary material backsets • The status quo results from “unequal treaties” • 10 years of CLIRS monopoly in Australia (82-92) • West’s relationship with US Courts • Courts everywhere surrendered citation control • NZ government had to buy back its own legislation

17. Are LIIs here to stay? • Australian law-related Internet traffic • Lexis Legal Insider, 2001 - • AustLII 31% • All legal publishers 25% (Lexis, CCH, Law Book Co etc) • Other free law 43% (Govt, courts, law firms etc) • Hitwise, 2002 • AustLII 30%; All Publishers 25%; Other free law 45% • ‘Stakeholder’ funding is sustainable • Publishers do not satisfy the ‘latent legal market’ • LII publishing is efficient: < 0.5¢(US) per case etc • Both source and user organisations will fund • LIIs are not just a bad dream • Cohabitation is the future …

18. Relationships between LIIs and publishers • ‘Friendly’ self-interest on both sides • “Keep the b******* honest” (Don Chipp) • Raising the bar for value-adding • ‘If we can automate it, you can’t sell it’ (AustLII) • Leveraging LII market share • CCH $80K p/a for ‘Publishers search’ • Finding justifiable balances of interest • Thomsons and the High Court’s centenary • ‘For free’ and ‘for fee’ are complementary • Legal publishers have invented and preserved the law • New audiences and new technology require a new balance

19. “Does legal information really want to be free?” • Q - Was supposed to be the opening Q of this Conference - let’s close with it • A - • Yes, essential/public legal information is part of the common heritage of mankind - it should be in the digital commons • No, it will not be free of its own volition, we must work to free the law and keep it free