Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly; Supreme Court Copyright Ruling Could Shake Up Legal Publishing
In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court this week held that legislators "cannot be the authors of—and therefore cannot copyright—the works they create in the course of their official duties."
"In upholding the appeals court reversal, the Supreme Court held that the annotations amended to the state of Georgia’s legal code were “ineligible for copyright protection” under the “government edicts doctrine,” a legal regime developed from a trio of 19th-century Supreme Court decisions.
“The animating principle behind the government edicts doctrine is that no one can own the law,” Roberts wrote. “Over a century ago, we recognized a limitation on copyright protection for certain government work product, rooted in the Copyright Act’s ‘authorship’ requirement. Under what has been dubbed the government edicts doctrine, officials empowered to speak with the force of law cannot be the authors of—and therefore cannot copyright—the works they create in the course of their official duties.”"
Adam Liptak, The New York Times; Georgia Can’t Copyright Its Entire State Code, the Supreme Court Rules
In a 5-to-4 ruling with unusual alliances, the court said that annotations cannot be copyrighted if they are the official work of state lawmakers.
"Georgia may not copyright its entire official code, which includes both the state’s laws and annotations interpreting them, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday. The 5-to-4 decision featured unusual alliances and would most likely be widely felt, as about 20 other states have claimed that parts of similar annotated codes are copyrighted."
Bill Rankin, Atlanta Journal Constitution; Who owns the law in Georgia?
"“If the (appeals court’s) decision is affirmed, publishers will no
longer be able to rely on sales of copyrighted works to recoup their
costs for preparing annotations,” said Johnson, also a Washington
attorney. “Therefore, states will either need to use taxpayer dollars to
pay the publishers or stop offering annotated versions of their
official codes.”
Thirteen states and the District of Columbia offered similar sentiments in a legal brief filed with the high court...
Malamud’s case has received support in friend-of-the-court briefs
filed by a wide variety of groups, including the American Library
Association, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Intellectual
Property Association and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the
Press, which was joined by Gannett Co., the Los Angeles Times and The
New York Times.
“If the First Amendment requires public access to
criminal trials so that citizens may oversee and participate in
government, then citizens must also have access to the laws that
organize their society (and that form the basis of those criminal
trials),” the media organizations said.""
Whitney Kimball, Gizmodo; Should You Be Allowed to Copyright a Law? We're Going to Find Out
"Copyright law, boring on its face, has posed various unprecedented
threats to intellectual freedoms in recent internet history. It
threatens to kill our links, kill our news, kill our memes, kill our precious videos of babies dancing to Prince. And yesterday, the Supreme Court considered the momentously stupid question: should you be able to paywall a law?"
