Incorporation by Reference. . . Standards Behind a Pay Wall 7

[SandCounter]

I recently came across a website that has collected and offers for free a large database of standards documents in *.pdf form. Money is usually charged for much of this material when obtained from the source, e.g. ASTM, etc. The website's justification is that the material is incorporated by reference in law and if ignorance of the law is truly no excuse, then people under that law should have free access to know what governs them.

Aside from the question of the ethics of posting for free someone else's work (notice I'm not posting the link), what are your views on engineering standards that are incorporated by law but require payment to view?

I used to count sand. Now I don't count at all.

 

[truckandbus]

I never thought about since I've never had to buy the standards I have access to but I'd say paying for the standards is part of the cost of doing business; much like the testing and certification expenses you would pay to bring a product to market.

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

I know the website you're talking about. I honestly agree with both sides; I feel that codes and specifications that are adopted by reference by an AHJ should be free in some way. I agree with the websites premise that by adopting these standards by reference they become equivalent to laws and need to be public. I also feel that the people developing said codes and specifications should be paid for their work.

Professional Engineer (ME, NH, MA) Structural Engineer (IL)
American Concrete Industries

http://www.americanconcrete.com

 

[JNieman]

I've always had a philosophical problem with it. I agree with the idea as you repeat it. If it's incorporated into legal requirements, it ought to be freely available.

"The cost of doing business" is not an issue here. It's the cost of "complying with the law" that is. Then you have to look at it from the customer/recipient/public stand point. How are they to audit what a professional has done? We as customers/the public are simply to -trust- that "they did it to spec and they have a stamp" is entirely sufficient. Ignoring the possibility of inability to understand the relevant engineering standards, would it not be wise to allow the public free use of these standards in order to double check? (also ignoring the inconvenience of having a layman come and question a beam analysis by an engineer with 30 years experience...)

It's always irked me as well... ASTM, ISO, IBC/IRC... what a racket!

 

[IRstuff]

Nevertheless, it costs money to develop and maintain standards. PEs pay for their licenses and insurance; I don't see why buying standards wouldn't be considered a prerequisite for doing that type of work. That said, one could likewise argue that any entity that adopts such standards is essentially getting free work that the entity would have otherwise had to do to create their own standard, and they should likewise be required to pay a fee for adopting the standard, and possibly pay a royalty per instantiation/usage.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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[PEDARRIN2]

In some ways, wouldn't this be like pirating electronic media?

An entity, in this case the governmental AHJ, pays for the license/ownership of a single copy of the copyrighted material, then provides it for free to anybody who wants it.

 

[SandCounter]

Pedarrin2, in my experience, the law will incorporate the standard by reference only and then it is on the law-abiding citizen to purchase the standard to see what's in it, or if it's even applicable to their design. I would think this arrangement would be a financial benefit to the standards organization.

I used to count sand. Now I don't count at all.

 

[IRstuff]

But, why should these jurisdictions get essentially a free ride? In fact, to enforce their codes, they have to purchase the codes anyway, but they're getting for free, the actual development and maintenance of the codes that are for their benefit.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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[SandCounter]

IRstuff, I agree, and in my original post I was going to comment on lazy law-makers, however I could see how it would be a great marketing strategy to have your standards codified so that people pretty much have to purchase them if they hope to be in compliance with the law. . . . a government-sanctioned monopoly.

I used to count sand. Now I don't count at all.

 

[JNieman]

I'm not saying the codes development and maintenance should be uncompensated. That's ridiculous. I'm saying that they should be paid for the same way we pay for the writing and maintaining of any other law or FED-STD-####, etc. If they are incorporated into law, then they are just that - laws. It should be the burden of the public to support the laws that keep them safe and secure. Not the engineers-alone, at significant cost.

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

JNieman, I like your thinking; star for you. That would solve a number of other problems as well. One potentially being the extreme rate that some codes are updated (something tells me the various government authorities would look less favorably on having to fund a code change every 3 years if they had to foot the bill).

About the only downside being that I'm sure the bureaucracy would find some way to make it less efficient and/or more complicated than we have right now. To me that seems a reasonable trade-off.

Professional Engineer (ME, NH, MA) Structural Engineer (IL)
American Concrete Industries

http://www.americanconcrete.com

 

[truckandbus]

It's overhead - light bulbs, copy paper, technical standards

Maybe what irks people is that you no longer get a tangible value for your money. A nicely bound multivolume set of standards seemed to be 'worth' something versus a downloaded file

 

[JStephen]

I see both sides of this. It seems the website people use it as a legal excuse to violate copyrights.

The non-digital comparison: Various cities here locally use various building codes. However the local libraries in those cities will usually have the referenced versions of those building codes available in their reference section- available for free.

 

[Compositepro]

This topic has been discussed before. NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) seems to have worked out a good compromise. They publish quite a number of codes, including the National Electric Code (NEC). You can view all their codes on-line but only one page at a time and you cannot print them. Rather inconvenient but you can see them for free. If you want convenience buy the book or CD. Often libraries will carry copies of codes.

 

[JNieman]

Addendum to my opinion stated previously - I do agree that moral objection is not grounds to break the laws in this situation. I don't like it, but "thems the breaks" until someone wants to flip the table and change the system to something like I'd want. I'm not holding my breath

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

I notice a lot of chemical, aerospace, and mechanical engineers commenting here. I'm curious how much each of you (or your companies) would have to spend for a full code change of your engineering references? Basically, I'm curious what other engineering disciplines besides structural need to keep updated in their libraries.

Here's what I came up with for myself as a bridge and buildings structural engineer (assuming no membership discounts or similar):

ICC Package (IBC, IRC, IEBC, IFC, IECC): $520.00
AISC 360 & 341: Free download (I'm leaving the manuals out as they're not technically needed to design for steel)
ACI Manual of Concrete Practice: $1,086.94 (probably could get away with only part of this)
ASCE 7-10: $165.00
AISI 2012 S200: Free download
NDS, SDPWS, & other wood specs: Free download
TMS 402: $150.00
AASHTO LRFD: $807.00
Various ASTM or other specs: $250.00 (lets say 5 of them at $50 each)
TOTAL: $2978.94

Now, I'm not really trying to prove much of a point here. I personally agree that this is the cost of doing business as a structural engineer. That said, every 3-5 years having to basically write off the profits of a job isn't exactly fun. The point where I agree with the OP's website is that how is a layperson, homeowner/business owner, part-timer, or other non-professional reasonably expected to maintain/view an updated library (even a part of the above) if they ever wanted to "double check" a design professional. While I'm sure there's little desire or practicality in someone doing such a double check I feel it's important that everyone have the option to do so.

It seems equivalent to someone getting their car worked on but not being allowed to look under the hood to see what was done. Do most people check that the oil change was done properly? Probably not. Should they be allowed to and not unduly being prevented from doing so if they want; absolutely. Maybe not the best analogy as you're not required by law to change your oil but hopefully you get what I mean.

Professional Engineer (ME, NH, MA) Structural Engineer (IL)
American Concrete Industries

http://www.americanconcrete.com

 

[TehMightyEngineer]

Compositepro: I like that solution and wish more adopted that approach. ICC does it as well where the IBC and IRC are free online to view one section at a time.

Professional Engineer (ME, NH, MA) Structural Engineer (IL)
American Concrete Industries

http://www.americanconcrete.com

 

[JNieman]

I've never had to pay to get a copy of a /customers/ company standards. McDonnell, Boeing, LockMart, Northrup, various others... once we're in the supply chain and doing work for them, all relevant documents rain freely from the sky... (well... after various security verifications are made )

At most, we've paid a pretty minimal fee for the /tools/ to access their various resources. For example, 2FA hardware tokens.

We're expected to work to their design, process, material specs, and so we are given them. It's just... nice. Fair, almost.

To think it's different for /laws/ is just a strange relationship.

 

[IRstuff]

Company standards are different. If they were to send you ASME or SAE standards, they would be violating their IHS contract, for which they pay dearly and yearly.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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[JedClampett]

I can live with ACI and IBC. Occasional changes, maybe every three years, municipalities have a choice whether or not to adopt them. At least in my area, they don't adopt every revision, so technically, you can skip an edition. And that means, no ACI update, no AISC, etc.
The one that sticks in my craw is the ASTM. They are essential, change regularly and cost a lot of money. I'm talking over $10,000 for a set that is immediately obsolete. We pretty much mindlessly reference them. I was just working with the Corps of Engineers specifications and they're even worse. Our office only had a 1998 edition until recently. We finally got digital access (I'm sure this costs an arm and a leg) which is great.
But I would still not entertain a pirated copy. I was schooled in the time where Microsoft would come down with the wrath of god on pirated software. I still think that someone's policing this. I would not want to explain to my boss why I was using illegal copies and we're being fined.