My reading of this is that it's something they're contractually bound to for the near term but not forever:
> Access limitations on full text and bulk data are a component of Harvard’s collaboration agreement with Ravel Law, Inc. (now part of Lexis-Nexis). These limitations will end, at the latest, in March of 2024.
Hopefully this means no logins, also, but that's less clear.
The blame on this should really fall on the courts that allow private companies to paywall access to the rule of law. At least some states have started to do it right:
> Once a jurisdiction transitions from print-first publishing to digital-first publishing, these limitations cease. Thus far, Illinois and Arkansas have made this important and positive shift and, as a result, all historical cases from these jurisdictions are freely available to the public without restriction. We hope many other jurisdictions will follow their example soon.
> Hopefully this means no logins, also, but that's less clear.
The only things we have behind logins are what we are contractually required to, yes. This gets pretty fine-grained -- if you do a logged-out search across jurisdictions, requesting full text, the json contains error fields for the specific fields we aren't allowed to share without a login yet.
> Access limitations on full text and bulk data are a component of Harvard’s collaboration agreement with Ravel Law, Inc. (now part of Lexis-Nexis). These limitations will end, at the latest, in March of 2024.
Hopefully this means no logins, also, but that's less clear.
The blame on this should really fall on the courts that allow private companies to paywall access to the rule of law. At least some states have started to do it right:
> Once a jurisdiction transitions from print-first publishing to digital-first publishing, these limitations cease. Thus far, Illinois and Arkansas have made this important and positive shift and, as a result, all historical cases from these jurisdictions are freely available to the public without restriction. We hope many other jurisdictions will follow their example soon.