Wired actually has an article worth reading, about the way that WestLaw locked up and commercialized the cases we love so much, creating a media empire in the process.
On one hand, they’ve provided a hell of a service: headnotes, commentary, organization, distribution, subscriptions to updated reporters and indexes.
On the other hand, they’ve maintained their monopoly status through some tight copyright control over the page numbers of the citations people use on a day-to-day basis. While many jurisdictions are moving to a “public domain” citation format, most of them still require citation to a specific reporter or set of reporters. And guess what: if you have the same page numbers as West, you’re in violation. If you even provide a translation (unless you are Shephard’s, I guess. I suppose they have a license) you would be in violation.