Justices to Decide Whether States Can Copyright Annotated Laws

The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether states can retain the copyrights to official annotations of their laws if they hire a private company to compile and sell them.

The high court agreed June 24 to review the U.S. 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.

The outcome ...