RECAP, the Firefox plug-in hack around PACER

Please read my update about PACER.

RECAP is "a Firefox-only plugin, that rides along as one usually uses PACER -- but it automatically checks if the document you want is already in its own database. . . . RECAP’s database is being seeded with millions of bankruptcy and Federal District Court documents, which have been donated, bought or gotten for free by open-government advocate Carl Malamud and fellow travelers such as Justia. [I]f the document you request isn’t already in the public archive, then RECAP adds the ones you purchase to the public repository."

Who wants to be the test case for this one? The article points out that, "after all," the filed documents can't be copyrighted. But that's not the problem. The problem is that using RECAP will bypass the federal courts' fee-collection system. I'd analogize to taking a book out of the library without using a library card, or (maybe better) refusing to pay a fee when you return a book late on the ground that the book you've taken out isn't copyrighted. Whether or how the book is copyrighted is irrelevant. Whoever provides the book or document is allowed to charge a reasonable administration fee for the access, even if it's an uncopyrightable public document.

I mean, I guess you can't charge a fee for access if you're operating under one of the weirder GNU type "copyleft" licenses that includes language about fees, but that's not what we're talking about here.