NFPA Journal - September/October 2013 - (Page 6)

>> FIRSTWORD BOARD OF DIRECTORS OFFICERS Chief Philip C. Stittleburg, Chair La Farge Fire Department La Farge, Wisconsin BY NFPA PRESIDENT JAMES M. SHANNON Ernest J. Grant, First Vice-Chair North Carolina Jaycee Burn Center Chapel Hill, North Carolina Philip J. DiNenno, Second Vice-Chair Hughes Associates, Inc. Baltimore, Maryland Randolph W. Tucker, Secretary ccrd partners Houston, Texas Protecting the Process H. Wayne Boyd, Treasurer U.S. Safety & Engineering Corporation Sacramento, California In August, NFPA joined with two other major standards development organizations, ASTM International and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and AirConditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), to file a lawsuit in federal court in the District of Columbia against Public.Resource.Org to stop it from infringing on our copyrights and trademarks. Public Resource has been copying and uploading our copyrighted standards without permission and making them available without restriction on the Internet. They argue that a copyrighted standard loses its copyright protection if it is referenced in a law. For the last century, many of the most important standards developed to protect the public have come from non-profit orga- and standards is provided by a wide range of experts who participate in a balanced consensus process. Quick and efficient standards development is especially important in a time of rapid technological change. If we cannot continue to do this important work because our funding source is taken away, important protections for the public will be degraded, technological change will be impeded, and governmental agencies that rely on us will be left in the lurch. All of the organizations in the lawsuit have made considerable efforts to provide public access to their standards. NFPA has been very aggressive in this regard by providing Internet access to all NFPA standards without charging a fee. NFPA’s free-access site does not permit downloading or printing of our standards, but anybody who wants access to our standards can get it anytime, anywhere in the world. We made this ACTIONS By the group Public Resource leap more than a decade ago because threaten an entire system designed to we wanted to go as far as we could to protect public health and safety. provide free access to safety information, including our standards, as part nizations like NFPA, ASTM, and ASHRAE, of our mission to promote safety. who depend on revenues from the sale of But there are limits to what we can do those documents to cover the cost of devel- without choking off the resources we need oping those standards. This funding source to keep our process strong. Like the other spreads the cost among users and ensures organizations that have joined us in this that decisions can be made independent suit, we are not eager to spend our of the funding source. An industry-funded resources on litigation. But we have an obliprocess could not possibly be as indepengation to protect not just an organization, dent as our system. but also a process that has been a driving By disregarding copyrights on standards, force for safety for over a century, one that Public Resource threatens not just the long- can continue saving lives and protecting term solvency of the organizations that property in perpetuity. We take that obligadevelop them but also an entire system tion as a steward of NFPA very seriously. designed to protect public health and safety, That is why we felt compelled to file this one that has stood the test of time. lawsuit, even though the stakes are very Government agencies at all levels rely high. We will take whatever steps are neceson us to provide the expertise necessary to sary to make sure NFPA can continue to do protect the public in many different ways. its good work, not just over the next few The technical foundation for our codes years, but through the next century. 6 NFPA JOURNAL SEPtEMBER/OCtOBER 2013 Photograph: dave Yount/NFPA Keith E. Williams, Assistant Treasurer Underwriters Laboratories Inc. Northbrook, Illinois James M. Shannon, President President and CEO, NFPA *Bruce H. Mullen, Staff Officer Sr. Vice-President and CFO, NFPA *Dennis J. Berry, Assistant Secretary Secretary of the Corporation, Director of Licensing, NFPA dIRECtORS Thomas W. Jaeger, Past Chair Jaeger and Associates, LLC Great Falls, Virginia Terms Expire in 2014 Amy Acton The Phoenix Society Grand Rapids, Michigan James M. Clark Management Consultant Germantown, Tennessee Kwame Cooper Los Angeles Fire Department Los Angeles, California Julie A. Rochman IBHS Tampa, Florida Terms Expire in 2015 Peter Holland Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service Lancashire, United Kingdom Brian Hurley Palm Beach, Florida William McCammon East Bay Regional Communications System Authority Dublin, California Harold A. Schaitberger International Assoc. of Fire Fighters Washington, D.C. William A. Stewart Toronto Fire Services (retired) Toronto, Ontario, Canada Peter J. Gore Willse XL GAPS Hartford, Connecticut Terms Expire in 2016 Donald R. Cook Shelby County Dept. of Development Services Pelham, Alabama Tonya Hoover Fire Marshal Sacramento, California Thomas Lawson FM Global Johnston, Rhode Island Chief Ned Pettus, Jr. Columbus Division of Fire Columbus, Ohio Dean L. Seavers Pinecrest, Florida Keith E. Williams Underwriters Laboratories Inc. Northbrook, Illinois *Not a member of the Board of Directors http://Public.Resource.Org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - September/October 2013

NFPA Journal - September/October 2013
Contents
First Word
In a Flash
Perspectives
Firewatch
Heads Up
Research
Structural Ops
In Compliance
Buzzwords
Outreach
Electrical Safety
Wildfire Watch
Cover Story: Furniture Flamability
Special Report
NFPA Reports
NFPA Reports
Fire Analysis + Research
Section Spotlight
What’s Hot
Looking Back

NFPA Journal - September/October 2013