So, the gist of it is that while the court decisions are public, things written about the court decisions, like news articles, may be copyrighted. The state of

So, the gist of it is that while the court decisions are public, things written about the court decisions, like news articles, may be copyrighted. The state of Georgia claims that this is the status of the annotations written by Lexis-Nexis. Clearly, this shouldn't be possible: a work contracted by the state is a work by the state (ie a work for hire), and should be public domain. But there's money involved, and that tends to be the deciding factor in legal decisions in the US.