Kristian Stout Quoted in The National Law Review on Pro Codes Act and Safety Standards Funding
The Pro Codes Act continues to be central to debates over public access to safety standards, even as concerns grow about its impact on industry. The National Law Review article quotes Kristian Stout on how the Pro Codes Act could weaken copyright protections and disrupts the funding model behind the development and maintenance of critical safety standards. Read the full article here.
International Center for Law & Economics Director of Innovation Policy Kristian Stout said: “Framed as a transparency measure, the Pro Codes Act would in practice upend the economic foundation of standards development. By conditioning copyright protection on government use, it transforms a stable property right into a revocable license—threatening the revenue model that sustains expert-driven standards. In doing so, it ignores critical differences among standards bodies and replaces a nuanced, court-developed balance between access and incentives with a blunt mandate that risks weakening investment, eroding technical quality, and undermining U.S. leadership in global standards-setting.”