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 Cover of vol. 1 (2007 ed.) | |
| Editor | Georgia Code Revision Commission |
|---|---|
| ISBN | 978-0-327-11074-3 |
| OCLC | 8723145 |
The Official Code of Georgia Annotated or OCGA is the compendium of all laws in the state of Georgia. Like other state codes in the United States, its legal interpretation is subject to the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Code, the Code of Federal Regulations, and the state's constitution. It is to the state what the U.S. Code is to the federal government.
An unusual feature of the OCGA is that, as stated in section 1-1-1, the privately prepared code annotations are officially merged into the official copy and are published under the authority of the state. The state held that it retained sole copyright in the code and that the authorized publisher held copyright to the annotations, though the laws of the state were the combination of the code and the annotations. Thus, the publisher would charge for reproductions of the OCGA, with a portion of the fee being returned to the state as a licensing fee. This longstanding feature goes back to the Code of 1872. In 2018, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the OCGA is not copyrightable,[1] and the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that holding in April 2020.