{"id":2190,"date":"2020-02-17T10:10:31","date_gmt":"2020-02-17T15:10:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/10q\/?p=2190"},"modified":"2020-02-17T10:10:31","modified_gmt":"2020-02-17T15:10:31","slug":"us-supreme-court-considers-reach-of-copyright-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.temple.edu\/10q\/us-supreme-court-considers-reach-of-copyright-laws\/","title":{"rendered":"US Supreme Court Considers Reach of Copyright Laws"},"content":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether a state can copyright annotated compilations of its own statutes. In December, the court heard oral argument in Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org<\/em>, a case that may provide clarity on what sort of material constitutes a \u201cgovernment edict\u201d that falls outside the scope of the copyright laws.<\/p>\n

The official code of Georgia annotated (OCGA) is more than just a collection of Georgia statutes. It is accompanied by related annotations consisting of cross-references, commentaries, excerpts from law review articles, and summaries of opinions by the Georgia attorney general, as well as other research references. Georgia contracts with Mathew Bender & Co., a division of LexisNexis, to prepare the annotations, and Georgia retains the copyright to the OCGA. The Code Revision Commission, a body established by the Georgia legislature and composed of members of the legislature, public officials, and other appointed individuals, supervises the creation of the OCGA and offers final approval. The OCGA states that the annotations are part of the official code and that the statutory portions are \u201cto be merged with annotations;\u201d however, a Georgia statute clarifies that the annotations do not have the force of law.<\/p>\n

In 2013, Public.Resource.Org (PRO), a nonprofit organization aiming to improve public access to government records, purchased 186 volumes of the OCGA in print form. PRO then scanned and published the OCGA on its website for free access to the public. The commission demanded that PRO remove the OCGA from its website, claiming PRO infringed upon the state\u2019s copyright. PRO refused, arguing that Georgia does not hold an enforceable copyright because the OCGA is part of the public domain.<\/p>\n

In 2015, Georgia sought injunctive relief in federal district court. The district court ruled in favor of Georgia and found that, because the OCGA lacked the force of law, it was not public domain material. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed, holding that the OCGA was a \u201cgovernment edict\u201d because of public officials\u2019 role in helping author the annotations, the authoritativeness of the OCGA and its integration into the official code.<\/p>\n

At the heart of Georgia and PRO\u2019s arguments is whether the OCGA is a \u201cgovernment edict.\u201d Government edict doctrine, last addressed by the Supreme Court in 1888, stands for the proposition that certain government works are considered \u201cauthored by the People\u201d and, therefore, are part of the public domain rendering them not copyrightable. Two cases illustrate the evolution of the doctrine in the Supreme Court. In the first case, Banks v. Manchester <\/em>(1888), when a publishing firm sought to enforce a copyright in Ohio judicial opinions prepared by judges, the Supreme Court ruled that only authors could copyright a work and that the authors, judges, could not hold a copyright on works generated as part of their official duties. In the second case, Callaghan v. Myers <\/em>(1888), a state-employed reporter who authored headnotes for opinions of the Illinois Supreme Court claimed copyright over his work. The Supreme Court refused to invalidate his copyright, finding that there were no public policy grounds for depriving him of copyright in work of his own intellectual labor.<\/p>\n

According to Georgia, the OCGA is not official law and, therefore, not a voice of the state. Instead, the voice of the state (the official code) is available to the public for free. In response, PRO argues that because the state has shaped and given its official approval to the OCGA, the OCGA comes from the voice of the state.<\/p>\n

At oral argument, Justice Neil Gorsuch asked why the public should be faced with obstacles to materials blessed by a state: \u201cWhy would we allow the official law enacted by the legislature \u2026 to be hidden behind a pay wall?\u201d In response, Georgia\u2019s lawyer claimed the law was \u201cnot behind a paywall,\u201d and attempted to draw a distinction between the OCGA and the law itself, which is available for free online. Unsatisfied with Georgia\u2019s response, Gorsuch fired back: \u201cBut not the official annotations that the legislature has, in some fashion or another, given its official approval to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg pressed PRO\u2019s counsel for a response to the distinction between official law and the OCGA: \u201cWhy \u2026 shouldn\u2019t it matter that these annotations are in no sense the law, they\u2019re just useful information on how the law has been interpreted and applied by others?\u201d Counsel for PRO responded by conceding that the OCGA annotations were not law but emphasized that the inquiry does not end there: \u201cOur main objection is when you confer officiality on these documents and you speak in the state\u2019s voice, that\u2019s the thing you can\u2019t copyright.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keenly aware of the practical impact of ruling the OCGA is a government edict, Justice Brett Kavanaugh pressed, \u201cThis is going to create problems in terms of incentives for creating these annotations in the first place.\u201d Kavanaugh went on to note that affirming the Eleventh Circuit\u2019s ruling would \u201cbe very disruptive for the states\u201d because about one-third of states have a scheme similar to that of Georgia\u2019s.<\/p>\n

The court will issue its decision before July 2020.<\/p>\n

Reprinted with permission from the January 8 issue of The Legal Intelligencer<\/em>. \u00a9 2020 ALM Media Properties, LLC. Further duplication without permission is prohibited. All rights reserved.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Stephen A. Miller practices in the commercial litigation group at Cozen O\u2019Connor\u2019s Philadelphia office. Prior to joining Cozen O\u2019Connor, he clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court and served as a federal prosecutor for nine years in the Southern District of New York and the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.<\/em><\/p>\n

Chase A. Howard (LAW \u201818) is an associate in the commercial litigation group at Cozen O\u2019Connor. His practice focuses on software-based litigation where he represents domestic and international software companies and implementation partners in disputes arising out of enterprise resource planning software.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cozen O’Connor attorneys share the latest on the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s consideration of the scope of copyright laws. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,36,61],"tags":[],"coauthors":[343,1602],"class_list":["post-2190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni-authored","category-intellectual-property","category-legal-developments","masonry-post","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"yoast_head":"\nUS Supreme Court Considers Reach of Copyright Laws - The Temple 10-Q<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/law.temple.edu\/10q\/us-supreme-court-considers-reach-of-copyright-laws\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"US Supreme Court Considers Reach of Copyright Laws - The Temple 10-Q\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Cozen O'Connor attorneys share the latest on the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s consideration of the scope of copyright laws.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/law.temple.edu\/10q\/us-supreme-court-considers-reach-of-copyright-laws\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Temple 10-Q\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-02-17T15:10:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Chase Howard (LAW '18), Stephen A. 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