Supreme Court to Decide Whether States Can Copyright Annotated Laws

The US Supreme Court on June 24, 2019, agreed to review a case that will decide whether states can preserve the copyrights to official annotations of their laws if they hire a private company to compile and sell them. Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org Inc., U.S., No. 18-1150, cert. granted 6/25/2019.

The Court will review the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling that Georgia can’t copyright the commentary, notes, and other research references that attorneys and academics use in legal research. Georgia contracted with LexisNexis to compile and sell the materials at a capped price, and sued nonprofit publisher Public.Resource.Org when it posted the Official Code of Georgia Annotated (OCGA) on its website.