Should Forensic-science Standards Be Open Access?

The federal government has spent millions of dollars to generate and improve standards for performing forensic-science tests through the Organization of Scientific Area Committees for Forensic Science (OSAC). Yet, it does not require open access to the standards placed on its "OSAC Registry of Approved Standards." Perhaps that can be justified for existing standards that are the work of other authors -- as is the case for some pre-existing standards that have made it to the Registry. But shouldn't standards that are written by OSAC at public expense be available to the public rather than controlled by private organizations?

When the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) established a Standards Board (the ASB) to "work closely with the [OSAC] Forensic Science Standards Board and its subcommittees, which are dedicated to creating a national registry of forensic standards," 1/ ASB demanded the copyright to all standards, no matter how little or how much it contributes to the writing of the standards. It insists that "the following disclaimer shall appear on all ASB published and draft documents:

All rights reserved. Unless otherwise specified, no part of this publication may be reproduced or utilized otherwise in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or posting on the internet or on an intranet, without prior written permission from the Academy Standards Board, American Academy of Forensic Sciences, 410 North 21st Street, Colorado Springs, CO 80904, asb.aafs.org.
Copyright © AAFS Standards Board [year]

Moreover, "[u]nless expressly agreed otherwise by the ASB, all material and information that is provided by participants and is incorporated into an ASB document is considered the sole and exclusive property of the AAFS Standards Board. Individuals shall not copy or distribute final or draft documents without the authorization of the ASB staff." 2/

The phrasing "is considered" departs from the ASB's own guidance that "[t]he active voice should be used in sentences." 3/ Who considers draft documents written by OSAC members "the sole and exclusive property of the AAFS Standards Board"? The ASB? The OSAC? The courts? Why should they? OSAC is not furthering the public interest by giving a private organization a monopoly over its work products. It should retain the copyright and reject the AAFS's unenforceable 4/ "no copying, no distributing" philosophy via a Creative Commons Attribution license.

NOTES

1. Foreword, ASB Style Guide Manual for Standards, Technical  Reports and Best Practice Recommendations (2016), https://asb.aafs.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/AAFS-Style-Guide-Manual-for-Standards-2016.pdf.
2. Id. at 12.
3. Id. at 1.
4. The asserted restriction on reproduction cannot be enforced literally because many reproductions are fair uses of the copyrighted material. That is what allows me reproduce the material quoted in this posting without ASB's permission. Arguably, reproducing an entire standard for noncommercial purposes would fall under the open-textured fair-use exception of 17 U.S.C. § 107.