Intellectual Property Law

For more than a decade, Carl Malamud of public.resource.org has been angering government bureaucrats by setting government documents free using his online pirate printing press.

But now, Malamud is campaigning to be The Man.

Or, more accurately, the chief printer for The Man.

Malamud started by forcing the SEC to put filings online in the '90s, moved into publishing the nation's laws and regulations for free online, and is now fighting to free  federal court document-retrieval systems from its onerous per-page fees.

It's all part of his plan to open-source the nation's operating system.

Now Malamud has launched a public campaign ? found online at YesWeScan.org ? to be nominated to become the "Public Printer of the United States," the head of the Government Printing Office.

He writes:

In 2008, Public.Resource.Org published over 32.4 million pages of primary legal materials, as well as thousands of hours of video and thousands of photographs. In the 1990s, I fought to place the databases of the United States on the Internet. In the 1980s, I fought to make the standards that govern our global Internet open standards available to all. Should I be honored to be nominated and confirmed, I would continue to work to preserve and extend our public domain, and would place special attention to our relationship with our customers, especially the United States Congress.

Malamud has already filed his radical transparency proposals with the Obama transition team, and now is looking for people to support his nominations by blogging about his campaign or adding their support in comments on blog posts.

Given Malamud's ability to wear down government bureaucracies, the Obama administration might do well to save themselves the trouble. Malamud will be the nation's public printer ? it's just a question of whether he'll be rogue or legit.

See Also:

• Advocacy Group Angry at Smithsonian's Fake Copyrights Claims Their ...
• Online Rebel Publishes Millions of Dollars in U.S. Court Records ...
• 2.01: Electric Word
• 2.07: Street Cred