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 Model proposed 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 Proposed Dynamically generated links and multiple citations (II) Shared data structures and markup Partly implemented by WorldLII participants Partly implemented 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 legislationeg 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