Supreme Court rules Georgia state law annotations not copyrightable [pdf]

Aside from the particulars of this case, I feel that the whole subject of copyright is generally anti-competitive and rent-seeking, as codified in the laws and time limits being inflated grossly to suit copyright holders in the current era.<p>In my opinion, the argument that copyright extension incentivizes authors&#x2F;creators doesn&#x27;t hold much water. I generally observe that there are plenty of people willing to create and publish things with absolutely no hope of profit or legal protection, and yet we bend over backwards to extend our protections for the lucky few to the tune of the author&#x27;s life + 70 years. Even more if for hire. Tell me how that&#x27;s in the public interest.

Reading the opinions, it is a breath of fresh air to see one of the branches of government relying upon fact and logical argument when discussing the issues. This is how America is supposed to work.

I had never heard of the &quot;government edicts doctrine&quot; before. Doing a little research, I see why. It is a judicially created doctrine created by the Supreme Court ~130 years ago, and this is the first time since then it has been back to the Court.<p>What they decided way back then was that opinions of state court judges, like opinions of Federal court judges, were not copyrightable. They also decided a little later that annotations written by a state-employed annotator where the state did not claim copyright on the annotator&#x27;s work could be copyrighted by the annotator.<p>What&#x27;s new in this case compared to those cases that originally established the government edicts doctrine is that it was a state that was trying to assert copyright ownership of the annotations.

Laws, and their official (albeit non-binding) interpretations should not be under copyright. This has struck me as an absurd assertion from the very beginning: We&#x27;re supposed to live in a nation of laws: how could that ever be the case if the laws themselves are kept from the people?

It’s a welcome decision, but a very obvious one. Why did Georgia need to get told that we, the people, own the laws?

There are interesting implications:<p>&gt; First, the author of the annotations qualifies as a legislator.<p>Whoa! There is a massive amount of such code, and the folks writing it are usually thought of as private lawyers, rather than public legislators. That&#x27;s a big deal, since the legislative process cannot be unconditionally private, but has to be balanced to keep the public informed.

Does the Court’s holding that officials cannot be “authors” have any implications for copyright in <i>privately written</i> documents that have been adopted as laws or regulations? Is <i>Veeck v. Southern Bldg. Code Congress Int&#x27;l, Inc.</i>, 293 F.3d 791 (5th Cir. 2002) still good law after today?

Yay for public.resource.org. Carl Malamud does excellent work. You can donate here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;public.resource.org&#x2F;about&#x2F;donate.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;public.resource.org&#x2F;about&#x2F;donate.html</a>

This is a huge win for civil liberty.

For background on this, see <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arstechnica.com&#x2F;tech-policy&#x2F;2019&#x2F;12&#x2F;justices-debate-allowing-state-law-to-be-hidden-behind-a-pay-wall&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arstechnica.com&#x2F;tech-policy&#x2F;2019&#x2F;12&#x2F;justices-debate-...</a>

Surprised no cite to the oral argument on Oyez in current discussion: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.oyez.org&#x2F;cases&#x2F;2019&#x2F;18-1150" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.oyez.org&#x2F;cases&#x2F;2019&#x2F;18-1150</a>

this is a huge win - although it&#x27;s interesting that Ginsburg and some other &quot;liberal&quot; judges seem to side with Georgia in saying that the state should be able to put the law of the land behind a pay wall.

The point is, judges make decisions based on these annotations. Therefore, if you&#x27;re a private citizen, or even an attorney, and you&#x27;re dealing with the court system, you must have access to the annotations or you&#x27;re at a serious disadvantage. For that reason, hiding them behind a subscription or paywall is the equivalent of &quot;secret&quot; laws, or perhaps justice reserved for the well-to-do.

I haven&#x27;t read the whole opinion yet, but it seems to be arguing that works produced in the course of a legislative function are not authored, and therefore not copyrightable. It doesn&#x27;t seem to have much to do with the content relating to the law or not.<p>And if so, what is the larger significance?

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scotusblog.com&#x2F;case-files&#x2F;cases&#x2F;georgia-v-public-resource-org-inc&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.scotusblog.com&#x2F;case-files&#x2F;cases&#x2F;georgia-v-public...</a>