The availability of laws is in issue of continuing controversy in the US. There is a significant group insisting that all legal requirements must be freely available to everyone. After all, you must obey them all and there are lots of them. However, for practical reasons this situation varies. US laws known as CFR or Code of Federal Regulations are available through the Government Printing Office where they sold at a very decent price to cover printing and handling. In addition to these laws, there are also policies established by government agencies which also have the effect of law. Access to these laws is provide free at the agencies and libraries. Recently almost all these documents are available online via the internet in various places and since there is minimal cost to network access they are provided free. Examples of these include the FCC requirements. In addition, the government references or includes copyrighted codes or standards owned by other organizations such as the National Electrical Code developed by NFPA. The copyrights are a necessary source of income for these groups and as a result, the documents are available either by purchase from the organization or sometimes through the government. State regulations are usually handled the same way. Sometimes a state pays a royalty fee in order to make the document freely available or reduced cost to the public. Most of the other regulatory standards we deal with are available through ANSI, American National Standards Institute, a private non-profit organization which makes its income partly through standards sales. ANSI publishes or provides many documents from affiliated organizations like IEC and IEEE and charges according to royalty fees, handling and printing costs. What you owe depends upon the copyright and the source. In other words some companies will provide at a charge, copies of what they acquired free. Don't duplicate copyrighted materials without following the conditions of the copyright (if there is one).
Bob Johnson ITE Safety <http://www.itesafety.com> wendy wrote: Dear Group, As far as I know IEC, ISO and EN standards are to be purchased (legally). What about American standards eg FCC Part 15/18, ANSI C63.4? I can find the sources from some websites (free download) but is it ‘illegal’? And should I purchase them ‘legally’ for lab use? Regards, Wendy Nya - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas [email protected] Mike Cantwell [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: [email protected] David Heald: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc - ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas [email protected] Mike Cantwell [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: [email protected] David Heald: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc
