Harmonised technical standards to be publicly available in EU

[switchabl]

Big news today that will likely change the way technical standards are distributed quite a bit.

The Court of Justice of the European Union has decided on appeal that harmonised technical standards need to be accessible to the public, reversing a decision of the General Court from 2021.

Press release: https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2024-03/cp240041en.pdf
Full text: https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=283443&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=6430150

The court side-stepped the question whether harmonised standards are copyrightable but affirmed that they indeed form part of EU law and as such there is an "overriding public interest in disclosure".

The decision was concerned specifically with four standards relating to toy safety but (IANAL) should in principle be applicable to a wide range of EN standards, including on electrical safety and EMC.

[soldar]

The same issue, whether codes incorporated into laws by referencing them should be free or for pay, is being debated in the USA:

[TimFox]

One thing at issue in the US is that the collections of individual State statutes are usually printed by commercial publishers who organize the statutes and add commentary about court decisions, etc.
Those publishers enforce copyright on their collections.

[themadhippy]

The Court of Justice of the European Union has decided on appeal that harmonised technical standards need to be accessible to the public,

As long as they've deep enough pockets to pay for them

[switchabl]

The Court of Justice of the European Union has decided on appeal that harmonised technical standards need to be accessible to the public,

As long as they've deep enough pockets to pay for them

No, you could always just buy the standards. They requested the documents under No 1049/2001 which is more or less the EU version of the Freedom of Information Act and the court held that the Commission acted unlawfully in refusing this request.

Article 10

Access following an application

1. The applicant shall have access to documents either by consulting them on the spot or by receiving a copy, including, where available, an electronic copy, according to the applicant's preference. The cost of producing and sending copies may be charged to the applicant. This charge shall not exceed the real cost of producing and sending the copies. Consultation on the spot, copies of less than 20 A4 pages and direct access in electronic form or through the register shall be free of charge.

[tom66]

This is nice news to hear.  Historically I have just bought standards from the Estonian Institute as they sell them for a few euros each in some cases, undercutting most of their competitors by a large margin (go Estonia!)  But completely free is even better.  I would go as far to say British Standards should be next - to sell some things in the UK market those standards are needed and whilst many are harmonised with the EU there are areas of difference.  We had to pay thousands of pounds to BSi to get access to some standards.

[themadhippy]

No, you could always just buy the standards. They requested the documents under No 1049/2001 which is more or less the EU version of the Freedom of Information Act and the court held that the Commission acted unlawfully in refusing this request.

Interesting,the short form link didnt make that clear. As  tom66 says it would be nice if british standards were to follow suit, little chance of that happening.

[mendip_discovery]

This is nice news to hear.  Historically I have just bought standards from the Estonian Institute as they sell them for a few euros each in some cases, undercutting most of their competitors by a large margin (go Estonia!)  But completely free is even better.  I would go as far to say British Standards should be next - to sell some things in the UK market those standards are needed and whilst many are harmonised with the EU there are areas of difference.  We had to pay thousands of pounds to BSi to get access to some standards.

Having to pay >£100 for a 1960s standard that is just A5 and 10 pages is just cheeky. I can understand covering the costs of the creation but it does seem like a money-printing system with the added benefit of keeping the riff raff out.

[Benta]

Interesting,the short form link didnt make that clear. As  tom66 says it would be nice if british standards were to follow suit, little chance of that happening.

Who needs them, unless you're still using Whitworth threads and measuring speed in furlongs-per-fortnight.

[SiliconWizard]

Sorry because I didn't read the full appeal so this still sounds fuzzy to me.
What does "publicly available" mean exactly? Completely free of charge? Because those standards have always been "publicly available" as long as you paid for your copy.
Is that some subtle "copyright" thing that will not make much difference in practice? Because obviously, a lot of content that's even in public domain can be distributed for a fee ("edition fee" or whatever).
So if in the end, I have to pay the same amount for a standard, or even more, but with the cozy thought that it's "publicly available", I don't think I care.

Sorry again, I probably haven't understood the depth of this court decision.

[tom66]

Interesting,the short form link didnt make that clear. As  tom66 says it would be nice if british standards were to follow suit, little chance of that happening.

Who needs them, unless you're still using Whitworth threads and measuring speed in furlongs-per-fortnight.

Well, for instance, fire detectors in the UK have additional standards requirements.  BS 5839 for instance.

[tszaboo]

That's nice. I had to buy several standards over the past decade, and it's always a struggle to get management to pay for it. Sometimes its 300-500 EUR just for one standard, and then you might need several. And a year later they come out with an update, and it's a rewrite. Sometimes you have to buy it to be able to figure out which one is actually applicable to your case. Sometimes there are throwaway lines in one standard that reference another one, which you don't have, and buying a standard for one paragraph is... not good.
It also doesn't mean that every NEN or EN standard will be available. But the list is extensive, for example this is   only for the EMC directive:
https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/51314

This is a 27 page long list of EMC harmonized standards.

Sorry because I didn't read the full appeal so this still sounds fuzzy to me.
What does "publicly available" mean exactly? Completely free of charge? Because those standards have always been "publicly available" as long as you paid for your copy.
Is that some subtle "copyright" thing that will not make much difference in practice? Because obviously, a lot of content that's even in public domain can be distributed for a fee ("edition fee" or whatever).
So if in the end, I have to pay the same amount for a standard, or even more, but with the cozy thought that it's "publicly available", I don't think I care.

Sorry again, I probably haven't understood the depth of this court decision.

Relying in particular on the principle of the rule of law and the
principle of free access to the law, the Court considers that the possibility for citizens to acquaint themselves with
those standards may be necessary in order to enable them to verify whether a given product or service actually
complies with the requirements of such legislation.

So free as in beer.

[SiliconWizard]

If they become as "freely" available as EU directives (which are downloadable indeed, for free and without even a registration to anything required), then I'll call that a win.
Can't wait to see that.

Now elaborating those standards has a cost though, and making them completely free of charge (if that's the case) will imply shifting costs from companies (and the very, very few individuals who would otherwise have bought them) to tax payers. Just saying.

[coppice]

Having to pay >£100 for a 1960s standard that is just A5 and 10 pages is just cheeky. I can understand covering the costs of the creation but it does seem like a money-printing system with the added benefit of keeping the riff raff out.

Oh come on. They are never just 10 pages. The body of the document might be just half a page, specifying just a couple of measurements, but there will be 10s of pages of title, and preamble, and definition of terms and other waffle.

[coppice]

The decision was concerned specifically with four standards relating to toy safety but (IANAL) should in principle be applicable to a wide range of EN standards, including on electrical safety and EMC.

A lot of the EN documents are the same as IEC and other standards body's documents, with a new header page and number. Isn't there going to be a serious clash there?

[switchabl]

I think the general expectation is that, unless the lawyers find a way to weasel out of it somehow, they will eventually make the standards available for (free) download just like the text of the directives themselves. The standardisation bodies have been complaining quite loudly about how this could destroy the whole standards system. But I think it's ultimately just about the money. A large part of the CEN/CENELEC budget already comes from the EU anyway and I guess there will be some renegotiations and then everyone will move on.

So yes, this will mean shifting some costs to taxpayers. Personally, I think this is fine. Given the fact that we essentially allow industry to write their own, legally binding, regulations through the standards system, the public should have the right to scrutinize them. As a side effect, it lowers the barriers to entry for small businesses and reduces the burden for freelancers.

My understanding is that if the court had struck down copyright on the standards as well, then someone could go and publish them all by themselves tomorrow. The court decided not to rule on that question, so everyone has to request them individually for now or wait for the Commission to figure out their new system.

[coppice]

My understanding is that if the court had struck down copyright on the standards as well, then someone could go and publish them all by themselves tomorrow. The court decided not to rule on that question, so everyone has to request them individually for now or wait for the Commission to figure out their new system.

I think its important that standards have tight copyright control. The last thing we want is people pushing out all sorts of doctored copies of these documents that can't be trusted. No copyright means no control.

[Benta]

I think its important that standards have tight copyright control. The last thing we want is people pushing out all sorts of doctored copies of these documents that can't be trusted. No copyright means no control.

Are you at the pub? If the document is available at an official "EN" website, who in the world would then download a doctored document from a babushka.ru site?

[tszaboo]

The decision was concerned specifically with four standards relating to toy safety but (IANAL) should in principle be applicable to a wide range of EN standards, including on electrical safety and EMC.

A lot of the EN documents are the same as IEC and other standards body's documents, with a new header page and number. Isn't there going to be a serious clash there?

They are usually are going to be called EN-IEC standard. Or the Dutch case, NEN-EN-IEC.
There will be some clashes, because the same standard is used outside the EU. So for example the same standard will be used in India, and it's going to be called IS-IEC, with some text written in the front. And here is the kicker: Lot of the Indian standards are already available for free:
https://www.scribd.com/document/544729790/is-13849-1993

They will have this cover page. So if you want to download standards for free and read them, you can already do that for some of these. Since the governing body is different, different standards are used, so the ones harmonized in the EU and "used" (not sure what's the proper term) might be different.

[soldar]

I think its important that standards have tight copyright control. The last thing we want is people pushing out all sorts of doctored copies of these documents that can't be trusted. No copyright means no control.

I think you are mistaken. The laws the people are supposed to abide by should be in the public domain and have traditionally been that way. Making people pay for the laws they are expected to follow sounds to me like government by the Mafia.

Not only should we be authorized and able to download the laws for free, we should also be allowed to reproduce them, like it has always been.

Suppose there is an argument in a forum between people who argue the law as written allows X and others say no, it explicitly disallows X ... but they cannot quote the law because it is copyright.  It just makes no sense. The laws should always be freely and publicly available to everybody to know, to learn.   Like with many documents, if there is any doubt about the authenticity of the text you can just go to an authorized source and confirm.

[Zero999]

My understanding is that if the court had struck down copyright on the standards as well, then someone could go and publish them all by themselves tomorrow. The court decided not to rule on that question, so everyone has to request them individually for now or wait for the Commission to figure out their new system.

I think its important that standards have tight copyright control. The last thing we want is people pushing out all sorts of doctored copies of these documents that can't be trusted. No copyright means no control.

You do know it's possible for something to be made publicly available, for free, whilst also still under copyright?

[5U4GB]

That's nice. I had to buy several standards over the past decade, and it's always a struggle to get management to pay for it. Sometimes its 300-500 EUR just for one standard, and then you might need several. And a year later they come out with an update, and it's a rewrite. Sometimes you have to buy it to be able to figure out which one is actually applicable to your case. Sometimes there are throwaway lines in one standard that reference another one, which you don't have, and buying a standard for one paragraph is... not good.

This is why there's a vast informal exchange of draft standards conveniently leaked from standards committees.  Even the standards committee members, the people whose unpaid labour created the standard, often don't have access to the final thing. 

And by "draft" I don't mean version 0.01 but pretty much the final version just with a few formatting changes not yet done.  I have way, waaay more draft standards than actual ones, for all of the reasons you give above.  It's funny doing work for some mega-corporation and noticing that they're all working from printouts of drafts as well, this standardised stupidity affects everyone not just the less financially able.

[5U4GB]

I think its important that standards have tight copyright control. The last thing we want is people pushing out all sorts of doctored copies of these documents that can't be trusted. No copyright means no control.

This is standard excuse #1 from organisations like ISO. 

As an argument it's about as persuasive as "everyone should learn latin because it structures the mind".

[tom66]

My understanding is that if the court had struck down copyright on the standards as well, then someone could go and publish them all by themselves tomorrow. The court decided not to rule on that question, so everyone has to request them individually for now or wait for the Commission to figure out their new system.

I think its important that standards have tight copyright control. The last thing we want is people pushing out all sorts of doctored copies of these documents that can't be trusted. No copyright means no control.

Nothing stops you downloading the FREE standard from a website that is authentic though.

Sadly I can't imagine the argument that won this victory would work in the UK.  British Standards are copyright BSi, and they are not the only legal way to implement something, but in many cases they are the only way that has been documented.  If you do not follow a BS standard in your smoke detector and many perish in a fire where your system was installed, you will have to explain your decision to the twelve jurors, and convince them that you were a responsible engineer.

The mess of standards around smoke/fire detection systems is one reason I'm glad I don't work in that industry any more.

[Someone]

Suppose there is an argument in a forum between people who argue the law as written allows X and others say no, it explicitly disallows X ... but they cannot quote the law because it is copyright.

We have that surprisingly often on this forum! Usually from people who "heard" it and cant even point to which standard (let alone clause) confirms it.