Program on Law and Technology at Columbia Law School

The case against PACER: tearing down the courts’ paywall - Ars Technica.

Lieberman Asks, Why Are Court Docs Still Behind Paid Firewall? - Wired.com.

An Effort to Upgrade a Court Archive System to Free and Easy - NYTimes.com.

quote: “Pacer takes information that [public.resource.org founder Carl Malamud] believes should be free — government-produced documents are not covered by copyright — and charges 8 cents a page. Most of the private services that make searching easier, like Westlaw and Lexis-Nexis, charge far more, while relative newcomers like AltLaw.org, Fastcase.com and Justia.com, offer some records cheaply or even free. But even the seemingly cheap cost of Pacer adds up, when court records can run to thousands of pages. Fees get plowed back to the courts to finance technology, but the system runs a budget surplus of some $150 million, according to recent court reports.”