Hunting down the decision discussed in this post about Hulu and the federal Video Privacy Protection Act cost me about $2.50 using the federal court’s PACER web service. Every time I use PACER, I get anxious as I see the $0.10/page charges add up with every click. I was looking for an Order, which should be an opinion and therefore available at no cost, but every time I searched for the case or the document it cost me $0.10/page!

I also forget that I probably won’t be paying those charges every time I use PACER. According to § 8 of the Electronic Public Access Fee Schedule [PDF Warning], a user must accumulate more than $15.00 in use charges in a quarter before the user is billed for use of the web service. So, as long as I don’t hunt down more than five or six more decisions before July, I should be in the clear.

Remember that, if used in moderation, PACER is free. Now, I should really review this decision and write a blog post on the revival of the Video Privacy Protection Act, so that $2.50 wasn’t a waste of money . . . . Oh yeah, I probably won’t be paying it!