Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org — Annotated State Legal Code Is Not Copyrightable

Background

Georgia publishes the Official Code of Georgia Annotated (OCGA), which contains both the statutory text (clearly not copyrightable) and detailed annotations — summaries of court decisions, references to law review articles, and other explanatory notes. The annotations are prepared by a private company (LexisNexis) under contract with the Georgia General Assembly, which officially adopts the annotated code as the authoritative legal reference for the state.

Public.Resource.Org, a nonprofit dedicated to free access to public legal materials, published a free digital copy of the OCGA — including the annotations. Georgia sued for copyright infringement, asserting copyright in the annotations. The Eleventh Circuit ruled for Georgia. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to address whether officially adopted legal annotations can be copyrighted.

The Court’s Holding

Chief Justice Roberts wrote for a 5–4 majority. The government edicts doctrine — rooted in 19th-century case law — holds that judges cannot hold copyrights in their official judicial opinions, and legislators cannot hold copyrights in the statutes they enact. The Court extended this principle: any work that a government official creates in the course of their official duties is uncopyrightable, because citizens must have free access to the law that governs them.

Applying that principle, the Court held that Georgia’s annotated code fell outside copyright protection. Even though private contractors physically drafted the annotations, they did so under the direction and supervision of the Georgia Legislature’s Code Revision Commission, working as legislative agents. The annotations were officially adopted as part of the state’s authoritative legal reference. Under those facts, the annotations were effectively legislative work product, not private expression eligible for copyright.

Key Takeaways

• The government edicts doctrine bars copyright in works created by judges and legislators in the exercise of their official duties — including statutes, regulations, and judicial opinions.
• Annotations to legal codes that are officially adopted by a legislature and prepared under legislative supervision are uncopyrightable government edicts.
• The key question is whether the government official was acting in an official capacity when creating the work — not who physically drafted it.
• Private publishers who produce legal research tools (annotated codes, practice guides) for private use retain copyright in their own commentary; only officially adopted works lose protection.

Why It Matters

Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org reinforced a fundamental democratic principle: people have a right to access the law that governs them without paying a private publisher for the privilege. The decision ensures that states cannot use copyright law to lock up their official legal materials behind paywalls.

The ruling also has significant commercial implications for legal publishers like LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters, who invest heavily in annotating state codes. Publishers can still sell their own commentary and research tools, but cannot use copyright to prevent free publication of materials that states have officially adopted as authoritative law. The 4–justice dissent argued the majority painted with too broad a brush and would chill investment in legal research tools — a debate that continues to shape the legal publishing industry.