Carl Malamud is one of the internet’s original warriors. He doesn’t get as much attention as some of the others because he deals mostly with access to information. Malamud is responsible for putting EDGAR online (with the US Securities and Exchange Commission squealing all the way).
Recently, Malamud has convinced CSPAN to open its video archive and when the Smithsonian sold off the US national heritage to Showtime, he filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to obtain the contract.
Now Malamud is going after WestLaw and its coveted database of US case law. Malamud usually goes about setting licensed public information free by setting up a demonstration Web site and garnering attention with the purpose of getting the holder of the information to take over the project. If they don’t, the data is made public in any case.
The WestLaw project is a little unusual in that Malamud has to begin with an ultrafiche version of the Federal Reporter. Each ultrafiche page is a 4x6-inch transparency holding about 1,000 pages of text. Malamud’s team has to enlarge, process with optical character recognition, and publish the material by hand.
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