Man Sued By STATE For Posting State Laws

David Knight breaks down a new story coming out of Georgia where a man is being sued by the state for posting state laws on his website.

You might think that legislation should be freely accessible as a matter of course, but the state of Georgia begs to differ. It's suing Public.Resource.Org owner Carl Malamud for allegedly violating copyright by publishing the annotated versions of Georgia's laws (that is, the ones that truly reflect the legislative process) online. While it's fine to publish the basic, note-free laws, the state argues that you should pay Lexis Nexis up to $378 to read the context-laden versions. The state claims that it would have to dip into tax dollars if it wanted to make this information free, and citizens would supposedly be deprived of "valuable analysis and guidance" if it wasn't published at all.

Malamud isn't likely to back down. He has long argued that the US discourages copyright on laws, since you have the right to know what your legislature is doing. He also fended off earlier pressure from Oregon to remove documents from his site. However, there's no certainty that Malamud will succeed this time around. He's undoubtedly publishing unauthorized scans -- his only chance might be to convince the court that Georgia is abusing copyright when it puts some of its public record behind a paywall.

Like everything from infowars, it doesn't even come close to the full story.

Lawsuit is against copyright infringement of annotated state laws, not for posting actual state laws.

So, try again next time. Maybe this will be proof to you how idiotic infowars is.

Beaten to it. But yeah.

It's amazing the way some people scream "wake up and see the truth!" while they readily eat what's spoonfed to them by people peddling garbage for advertising revenue.

And that's just the mainstream news...let alone with sites like things get into.

I think LordGrim should be rewarded with his own forum, where he can post all of his conspiracy theories whenever he likes.

"Open your eyes and don't buy into the sheeple mainstream media ***. Buy into our brand of sheeple conspiracy theory *** instead"™

Or to be specific, tin foil fedora!

So, a blog.

but who would want to honor veterans.

You missed the fine print ;)

I think LordGrim should be rewarded with his own forum, where he can post all of his conspiracy theories whenever he likes.

Just as long as it doesn't appear on the "Latest Topics" feed... But don't tell him that...

Oh, and then block access to that forum for anyone who isn't LordGrim, charlo, and Ryanx.

I think so too.

And I also think that this is a good time to institute a way to prevent threads from certain forums from populating if the user wishes to ignore it. That way, only 3 people will pay attention to that forum section.

Not that it matters to this, because I'm not adding a 'Raving Lunacy' forum section in the first place. We already have the Puppetmaster forums for that.

Not that it matters to this, because I'm not adding a 'Raving Lunacy' forum section in the first place. We already have the Puppetmaster forums for that.

Not that it matters to this, because I'm not adding a 'Raving Lunacy' forum section in the first place. We already have the Puppetmaster forums for that.

Government took my soul. They said it was property of the Disney Corporation. Who knew.

Government took my soul. They said it was property of the Disney Corporation. Who knew.

The annotations include things such as the names and a brief paragraph summary of relevant caselaw concerning the specific law being annotated. So, the first question is can this be covered by copyright? Most likely the answer is yes, if a limited kind of copyright. There is some creative choice in selecting what to cover and how to cover it, though significant parts of it are factual (names of cases and whatnot). As some pointed out, LexisNexis competitor WestLaw also offers its own annotated code of the state and sells it itself, and pretty much everyone is comfortable with the copyright there.

So, what's different here? Well, for one, part of the deal with LexisNexis is that after writing the work, the company transfers the copyright to the state itself. Some have pointed to the fact that under federal copyright law the federal government cannot get copyright on works of its own creation, but that does not really apply here in two separate ways. First, there's some dispute over whether or not those same rules apply to state governments as well -- with many arguing that without it being explicit, states can copyright their own creative works. The second issue, though, is that even under federal copyright law, if a third party/contractor creates the work and then assigns the copyright to the government, then even the federal government can keep and use that copyright. And, that's clearly the situation here.

So, yes, it's reasonable to argue that the original annotations should and did receive copyright protection. And it's also reasonable to argue that the state technically still has control over that copyright upon assignment by LexisNexis. From there, however, the legal issues get a bit more cloudy. The state of Georgia still does call the resulting publication the "Official Code of Georgia Annotated." And at the very least, at that point, you have to wonder why any aspect of the "official" laws of Georgia should be covered by copyright. Indeed, as LexisNexis points out on its own site, this "copyright" covered version of the law is "essential" to understanding the law and includes "guidance from the Georgia Code Commission."

The Official Code of Georgia Annotated (OCGA) provides users with the official Georgia statutes, fully annotated and including guidance from the Georgia Code Commission. If you live or work in Georgia, the OCGA is the essential reference you need to guide you quickly and efficiently in understanding the Georgia statutory scheme

Furthermore, multiple parts of the Georgia government refer to the OCGA as the law of Georgia, rather than the unannotated version. Just as two quick examples, the Georgia Department of Community Affairs cites the OGCA to explain Georgia's construction codes, rather than the unannotated law. And the Department of Banking and Finance insists that:

Laws governing entities regulated by the Department are primarily found in the Official Code of Georgia Annotated (O.C.G.A.) Title 7.

In other words, basically everyone in the Georgia government is saying that if you want to know the laws of Georgia, the OCGA is the only way to do so. And that raises serious questions about whether or not it should be allowed to lock up such text under copyright. The big question is if the OCGA is an "edict of government," as the US Copyright Office has declared such to be not copyrightable "for reasons of public policy."

Edicts of government, such as judicial opinions, administrative rulings, legislative enactments, public ordinances, and similar official legal documents are not copyrightable for reasons of public policy. This applies to such works whether they are Federal, State, or local as well as to those of foreign governments.

Given how the state of Georiga touts the OCGA as being "essential" and various government agencies directly cite it as where to find out about the laws that may apply to you, it seems reasonable to argue that the "Official Code of Georgia Annotated" is an "edict of government" and thus "not copyrightable for reasons of public policy."

I think Disney owes me some money somehwere along the line for my attraction to redheads. The Little Mermaid should not have been made available to impressionable young boys.