It doesn’t solve anything.
Klosek 24 – Director for Information Policy and Federal Relations at the Association of Research Libraries, former Director of the Center for Applied Public Research at Johns Hopkins University, M.A. in Public Policy from Johns Hopkins University.
Katherine Klosek, “No One Can Own the Law—So Why Is Congress Advancing a Bill to Extend Copyright to It?,” Association of Research Libraries, 04-19-2024, https://www.arl.org/blog/no-one-can-own-the-law-so-why-is-congress-advancing-a-bill-to-extend-copyright-to-it/
The SDOs supporting the Pro Codes Act assert that it would increase access to the law by incentivizing the SDOs to provide online “reading rooms” where the public could read the standards incorporated by reference. However, such reading rooms are unnecessary because public interest groups already provide free online access to the standards in more usable formats. As Corynne McSherry, legal director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), stated: “This legislation is a solution in search of a problem: at least one public interest organization is already providing much better access to the law, also for free, with no financial impact on the standard organizations.” In 2023, McSherry successfully represented Public.Resource.Org in ASTM v. Public.Resource.Org, where the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit held that fair use permitted Public.Resource.Org to post online codes incorporated by reference because it served a nonprofit, educational purpose.