| Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc. | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued December 2, 2019 Decided April 27, 2020 | |
| Full case name | Georgia, et al., Petitioners v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc. |
| Docket no. | 18-1150 |
| Citations | 590 U.S. ___ (more) 140 S. Ct. 1498 206 L. Ed. 2d 732 |
| Argument | Oral argument |
| Case history | |
| Prior | Code Revision Comm'n v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc., 244 F. Supp. 3d 1350 (N.D. Ga. 2017); reversed and remanded sub nom. Code Revision Comm'n for Gen. Assembly of Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc., 906 F.3d 1229 (11th Cir. 2018); cert. granted, 139 S. Ct. 2746 (2019). |
| Holding | |
| Legal annotations that are created by legislatures are ineligible for copyright. | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Roberts, joined by Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh |
| Dissent | Thomas, joined by Alito; Breyer (all but Part II–A and footnote 6) |
| Dissent | Ginsburg, joined by Breyer |
Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc., No. 18-1150, 590 U.S. ___ (2020), is a United States Supreme Court case regarding "whether the government edicts doctrine extends to—and thus renders uncopyrightable—works that lack the force of law, such as the annotations in the Official Code of Georgia Annotated"[1] (OCGA). On April 27, 2020, the Court ruled 5–4 that the OCGA cannot be copyrighted because the OCGA's annotations were "authored by an arm of the legislature in the course of its legislative duties";[1] thus the Court found that the annotations fall under the government edicts doctrine and are ineligible for copyright.
Litigation began in 2013 after Carl Malamud published the OCGA on Public.Resource.Org (PRO). The state of Georgia filed a lawsuit in 2015. In March 2017, a federal court in the Northern District of Georgia ruled in the state's favor, after which in 2018 the Eleventh Circuit reversed the ruling. Both Georgia and PRO appealed to the Supreme Court, which heard arguments in December 2019.