Judicial information is valuable.
It provides the raw material for the legal system as well the foundation for a democratic government based on individual's rights. Utilizing the Internet, it costs no more to provide data to one person than to make it available to 1000. On the other hand, if a charging and collecting mechanism is built-in, the overhead costs due to charging and collecting accrue for each of the 1000 accesses. Additionally, because answers to open records requests are generally available to the public via the Internet, the cost savings associated with the reduction in clerical time spent fielding calls should more than offsets any mandated cost recovery.