Say you live in Rhode Island and want to upgrade the ancient plumbing in your kitchen. You figure you should be able to save some cash and do it yourself, but want to make sure you're on the up-and-up with all applicable codes and regulations. So you head over to the state’s website to read the plumbing code.

Problem is, the 15-page "code" is actually just a series of modifications to a 156-page volume of standards published by the International Code Council—the 2009 edition of which, according to the introduction to the state regs, “is protected by the copyright that has been issued to the ICC. As a result, the State Building Code is not available in complete form to the public in an electronic format."

Your choice: $89 for a printed copy, or $74 for an e-copy. But why should you have to pay to read laws that you must obey?

You shouldn't, of course. Neither state nor federal law is copyrightable. Nevertheless, standards development organizations—from the American Society of Sanitary Engineers to the National Wood Window and Door Association—insist otherwise, having poured resources into developing long, technical regulations because the government didn’t have the expertise to do so. Now, state and federal laws simply reference these industry codes, and allow non-profits to charge for hefty books.

For decades, reading these books for free has required trekking to your state capitol, or if you’re lucky, a local library. But the Internet has created an expectation that everything be made available online, searchable, linkable, printable, and free—especially something that seems as rightfully in the public domain as the law of the land.