{"id":617,"date":"2016-05-20T20:29:39","date_gmt":"2016-05-20T20:29:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/?p=617"},"modified":"2021-12-11T18:11:18","modified_gmt":"2021-12-11T18:11:18","slug":"from-blue-to-indigo-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/?p=617","title":{"rendered":"From Blue to Indigo to \u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"indigo\"<\/a><\/span><\/h2>\n

A New Citation Guide<\/span><\/h2>\n

A legal citation guide of a different hue, The Indigo Book<\/em><\/a>, arrived on the scene this spring.<\/em> Like the University Chicago Law Review\u2019s Maroonbook<\/em><\/a>, it was born of frustration over The Bluebook<\/em><\/a> \u2013 but frustration of a very different kind.\u00a0 The Maroonbook<\/em>, first published in the late 1980s, still followed and revised by the University of Chicago Law Review, aimed to supplant The Bluebook<\/em>\u2019s complex and detailed dictates with \u201ca simple, malleable framework for citation, which authors and editors can tailor to suit their purposes.\u201d\u00a0 In contrast, The Indigo Book<\/em>, seeks to pry loose those very dictates, or at least the subset most important for participation in U.S. legal proceedings, from the intellectual property\u00a0claims made by The Bluebook<\/em>\u2019s proprietors<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Working under the guidance of NYU copyright expert, Professor Christopher Sprigman<\/a>, a team of students spent over a year meticulously separating the \u201csystem of citation\u201d reflected in The Bluebook<\/em> from that manual\u2019s expressive content \u2013 its language, examples, and organization.\u00a0 The Indigo Book<\/em> is the result.\u00a0 Like the ALWD Guide to Legal Citation<\/a><\/em>, first published in 2000, it endeavors to instruct those who would write legal briefs or memoranda on how to cite U.S. legal materials in complete conformity with the system of citation codified in the most recent edition of The Bluebook<\/em>\u00a0while avoiding infringement of that work\u2019s copyright.<\/p>\n

Unlike the ALWD Guide<\/em>, which competes with The Bluebook<\/em> for a share of the lucrative legal education market at a similarly substantial price, this new entrant is free.\u00a0 It can be viewed online or downloaded, without charge, in either of two formats \u2013 PDF<\/a> or HTML<\/a>.\u00a0 As the work\u2019s forward explains, providing \u201cpro se litigants, prisoners, and others seeking justice but \u2026 lack[ing] resources \u2026 effective access to the system lawyers use to cite to the law\u201d was, for its creators, an important goal.<\/p>\n

Relatively few U.S. jurisdictions formally\u00a0require that citations in court filings conform to the scheme\u00a0set out in The Bluebook<\/em>.\u00a0 (I count one U.S. circuit court, a handful of U.S. district courts, and the appellate courts of eleven states.)\u00a0 But Bluebook-compatible citations are consistent with the rules of most.\u00a0 By removing price as a barrier and focusing on the legal materials most frequently cited in U.S. proceedings, this guide of a different color seeks to improve access to the nation\u2019s judicial system.<\/p>\n

Establishing a Space for Innovation<\/h2>\n

The<\/em> Indigo Book<\/em> is free in a second, more radical sense.\u00a0 It has been released with a Creative Commons public domain dedication<\/a>.\u00a0 Anyone can copy and redistribute it.\u00a0 Anyone can create new and different works based upon it.\u00a0 No further permission from the creators or publisher is required.\u00a0 The aim here is said to be the clearing of this zone, so important to our legal system, for further innovation.<\/p>\n

From the very outset, The Indigo Book<\/em> project has been both goaded and troubled by overbroad copyright threats and innuendo from The Bluebook<\/em>\u2019s proprietors and their attorneys. \u00a0(Carl Malamud, who has been central\u00a0to the project and whose Public.Resource.Org is Indigo<\/em>‘s publisher, tells the full lamentable story here<\/a>.) By separating the widely used system of citation codified in The Bluebook<\/em>\u00a0from its particularized expression, The Indigo Book<\/em> seeks to build a wall between such claims\u00a0and the projects of future software and database developers and citation guide authors.<\/p>\n

“Not Authorized by Nor in Any Way Affiliated with …”<\/h2>\n

Why indigo?\u00a0 As discussed in an earlier post<\/a>, the four law journals that publish The Bluebook <\/em>hold registered trademarks in three variations of that name.\u00a0 The Indigo Book<\/em> was, for a time, going to be \u201cBaby Blue.\u201d\u00a0 The law firm representing the Harvard Law Review Association demanded that the title be changed and that it not be replaced by one \u201cconsisting of or comprising the word \u2018Blue\u2019\u201d<\/a>.\u00a0 While denying that \u201cBaby Blue\u201d posed any risk of trademark confusion or dilution<\/a>, the creators of the new guide decided, nonetheless, to change its name rather than waste time and money on litigation.\u00a0 Quite possibly they shared Isaac Asimov\u2019s view<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It is customary to list indigo as a color lying between blue and violet, but it has never seemed to me that indigo is worth the dignity of being considered a separate color. To my eyes it seems merely deep blue.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What Are the Likely Prospects for the New Guide?<\/h2>\n

In legal education<\/h3>\n

The Bluebook<\/em> is published by four law journals and commands the allegiance of nearly all law student-edited reviews in the country. \u00a0Due to the place of those reviews in law school culture, faculty members responsible for courses on legal writing are under powerful pressure to teach the \u201cBluebook\u201d rules.\u00a0 Over time that pressure induced the Association of Legal Writing Directors (ALWD) to bring that organization\u2019s competing guide into complete conformity<\/a>.\u00a0 Like the new Indigo Book<\/em>, the ALWD guide is better organized than The Bookbook<\/em> itself and, on many points, clearer in explanation and illustration.\u00a0 It, too, has saved space and maintenance burden by limiting itself to U.S. sources.\u00a0 Even so, powerful network effects have limited its market share.\u00a0 For The Bluebook<\/em> is not merely manifest in the format of the citations it enables journal editors, legal academics, lawyers, and legal assistants to produce.\u00a0 It also represents a matrix of rule numbers and tables that facilitates communication about and resolution of citation issues. \u00a0Biblical exegesis is characterized by reference to chapter and verse.\u00a0 Law review debates over proper citation form refer\u00a0to\u00a0Bluebook<\/em> rule numbers, tables, and text. \u00a0Even at the powerfully attractive price point of free, The Indigo Book<\/em> will run up against the dependence of most citation discourse within America\u2019s law schools, student-edited journals, and large firms on The Bluebook<\/em>\u2019s classificatory scheme and specific language.<\/p>\n

As a Resource for \u201cpro se litigants, prisoners, and others seeking justice\u201d<\/h3>\n

In the form released the new guide is also unlikely to be of much aid\u00a0to those navigating the legal system on their own.\u00a0 By seeking to liberate the full system of citation explicated in 350 or so of The Bluebook<\/em>\u2019s pages, Indigo<\/em>\u00a0had, of necessity, to be far more detailed than any useful self-help guide should be. \u00a0Moreover, that detail incorporates\u00a0numerous points on which The Bluebook<\/em>\u00a0reflects the undue influence of major publishers and many others in which is out of step with the evolving\u00a0citation practice of lawyers and judges responding to the proliferation of electronic sources.<\/p>\n

By placing their guide in the public domain, however,\u00a0The Indigo Book<\/em>\u2019s creators have made it possible for groups preparing pro se handbooks,\u00a0web site resources, and courthouse kiosks to draw upon it in preparing appropriately tailored citation guidance.\u00a0 Other derivative work possibilities abound.\u00a0 Bar groups or court systems may well be tempted to prepare citation manuals adapted to state-specific citation requirements and norms. \u00a0Citation software developers<\/a> should\u00a0be able to proceed without infringement fears. All of this is to be hoped for.<\/p>\n

As the author of a free citation reference, now in its twenty-third year<\/a>, I welcome The Indigo Book<\/em> and all its future progeny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A New Citation Guide A legal citation guide of a different hue, The Indigo Book, arrived on the scene this spring. Like the University Chicago Law Review\u2019s Maroonbook, it was born of frustration over The Bluebook \u2013 but frustration of a very different kind.\u00a0 The Maroonbook, first published in the late 1980s, still followed and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,8,32,40,42],"tags":[35,34,6],"class_list":["post-617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alwd","category-bluebook","category-copyright-2","category-software","category-trademark","tag-alwd","tag-bluebook","tag-copyright"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=617"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":633,"href":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617\/revisions\/633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citeblog.access-to-law.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}