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Harmonised technical standards to be publicly available in EU

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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:

--- Quote ---The Court of Justice of the European Union has decided on appeal that harmonised technical standards need to be accessible to the public,
--- End quote ---
As long as they've deep enough pockets to pay for them

switchabl:

--- Quote from: themadhippy on March 05, 2024, 04:39:47 pm ---
--- Quote ---The Court of Justice of the European Union has decided on appeal that harmonised technical standards need to be accessible to the public,
--- End quote ---
As long as they've deep enough pockets to pay for them

--- End quote ---

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.


--- Quote from: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32001R1049 ---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.

--- End quote ---

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