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Until just a few years ago, the state of Georgia was suing this person for freely publishing the state's official code of laws. Georgia had paid LexisNexis to

Until just a few years ago, the state of Georgia was suing this person for freely publishing the state's official code of laws. Georgia had paid LexisNexis to annotate their laws and the annotated version became the authoritative copy. The state then asserted copyright over the annotations. In 2020, SCOTUS decided 5-4 that legal annotations that are created by legislatures are ineligible for copyright. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_v._Public.Resource.Org,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_v._Public.Resource.Org....

joshuacc 4y ago
It’s interesting to note that this decision did not come down along typical ideological lines either. The majority was three conservatives and two liberals, while the minority was two conservatives and two liberals.
tibbon 4y ago
I want to be shocked that 4 SC Justices thought that those annotations were copyrightable. How is this not obviously public data? Legislatures are on our payroll and work for the people.
- imajoredinecon 4y ago
  If you have an hour to kill, it could be worth taking a look at the dissents in order to see their reasoning. The justices (/their clerks) are very good writers and decisions and dissents are pretty easy for a layperson to follow.
  - random314 4y ago
    Most people don't have an hour to kill, and frequently use common sense to judge egregious violations of this kind.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > Most people don't have an hour to kill, and frequently use common sense to judge egregious violations Most people aren’t lawyers or justices. This is specialisation of labor. If it doesn’t matter enough to spend a fraction of the time reading an option that took orders of magnitude more time to produce, the lazy opinion is a hunch, nothing more.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - random314 4y ago
        I read 2 of the 20 pages of the dissent and the dissent in Wikipedia. And guess what, the common sense judgement was correct. Thomas dissent involved clerical, Kafkaesque beuracratic objections while fundamentally ignoring the right of a citizen to know the law. The very notion of selling the copyright for laws and judgements to a monopoly private party is ridiculous. The other objection is the grievance that a private party can't profit off annotations. Again, quite laughable. The court can simply pay a fee to any private party that helps with annotation. There is also a ridiculous idea in there that granting a monopoly will improve the quality of annotations (through the lack of competition?!!!!) This is high school level reasoning. Yeah, the dissents were ridiculous and not worth the time I spent reading them. Others are free to waste their time like I did, but would advise them not to. They should simply ignore the dissent as it is ridiculous. It can help in lowering the prestige of the Supreme court, but the abortion judgement based off "states rights" already took care of that. The Supreme court sounds like a political jerk fest at this point. At this point, I suspect I have read more than everyone else in this thread. And it was a waste, except that it helped me question Thomas's sanity.
        JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > I suspect I have read more than everyone else in this thread You read two pages and a Wikipedia article. Come on.
        4y ago
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    Dissents begin on page 22 [1]. [1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-1150_7m58.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-1150_7m58.pdf
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- culi 4y ago
  Majority: Roberts, joined by Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh Dissent: Thomas, joined by Alito; Breyer (all but Part II–A and footnote 6) Dissent: Ginsburg, joined by Breyer --- For non-Americans, from most conservative to most liberal: Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Roberts, Ginsburg, Kagan, Breyer, Sotomoyor Woof, if this would've happened in 2022 it would've probably gone the other way since Sotomoyer got replaced with a very conservative justice (Barret)
  - bentley 4y ago
    Sotomayor is still on the Court. Barrett replaced Ginsburg, who you’ll notice dissented here. Breyer was also replaced this year (with another liberal). Copyright is one of those issues that is not necessarily clear‐cut between left and right, but more of an opinion specific to an individual justice. In this case, the majority and the dissents were each roughly evenly split between conservatives and liberals, not along (those) ideological lines.
- rayiner 4y ago
  It’s not so obvious. The annotations weren’t produced by the legislature and do not have the force of law. In a way they’re like any other law book that collects together public opinions and statutes with explanatory text, which are definitely copyrightable. The wrinkle in this case was that the legislature contracted with a private company to add the annotations: > The Commission entered into a work-for-hire agreement with Matthew Bender & Co., Inc., a division of the LexisNexis Group, to prepare annotations Allowing the private company to keep the copyright was basically a way for the legislature trying to get this work done on the cheap. After all if the legislature had told LexisNexis that the work would be public domain, it probably would have had to pay (or pay more) for LexisNexis to do the work. This is typical. There’s myriad ways where the government can get some product or service for less money, or less money up front, by giving up some public right of privilege. The number of people who care about this sort of open government stuff is, unfortunately, pretty limited. I don’t think I know a single person outside HN who mentioned this case when it was pending or decided. And I work in Supreme Court practice! Also, this sort of thing is kinda Georgia’s MO. It attracts residents and businesses from Illinois and New York by having lower taxes. That often means cutting corners on things like this.
  - andrewflnr 4y ago
    > The ... do not have the force of law So you're saying this part > the annotated version became the authoritative copy is wrong? Either way, you're describing a situation where the state cheaped out in a way that deprives its residents of their right to know what law governs them. I still call that obvious.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - rayiner 4y ago
      It’s not wrong, but I’m this context “authoritative” doesn’t mean the whole thing is “legally operative.” Here is an example (reckless driving): https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2020/title-40/chapter-6/article-15/section-40-6-390/ https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2020/title-40/chapter-6... The first part, subsections (a) and (b) is the actual law. That’s the only legally operative part that defines what reckless driving is. In most states, that is the only thing that is published. The following sections are explanatory notes that don’t have the force of law and are not law. For example, it cross references relevant case law. In other states private companies will create these annotated versions of the legal code with these cross references, and those are definitely copyrightable.
- esbranson 4y ago
  Ruth Bader Ginsburg was such a justice who thought prison was allowable for publishing the law. What a hero!
another_story 4y ago
It's worrisome that it was split 5-4 on the issue of copyright with something that was paid for with tax dollars.

joshuacc 4y ago

It’s interesting to note that this decision did not come down along typical ideological lines either. The majority was three conservatives and two liberals, while the minority was two conservatives and two liberals.

tibbon 4y ago

I want to be shocked that 4 SC Justices thought that those annotations were copyrightable. How is this not obviously public data? Legislatures are on our payroll and work for the people.

imajoredinecon 4y ago
If you have an hour to kill, it could be worth taking a look at the dissents in order to see their reasoning. The justices (/their clerks) are very good writers and decisions and dissents are pretty easy for a layperson to follow.
- random314 4y ago
  Most people don't have an hour to kill, and frequently use common sense to judge egregious violations of this kind.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > Most people don't have an hour to kill, and frequently use common sense to judge egregious violations Most people aren’t lawyers or justices. This is specialisation of labor. If it doesn’t matter enough to spend a fraction of the time reading an option that took orders of magnitude more time to produce, the lazy opinion is a hunch, nothing more.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - random314 4y ago
      I read 2 of the 20 pages of the dissent and the dissent in Wikipedia. And guess what, the common sense judgement was correct. Thomas dissent involved clerical, Kafkaesque beuracratic objections while fundamentally ignoring the right of a citizen to know the law. The very notion of selling the copyright for laws and judgements to a monopoly private party is ridiculous. The other objection is the grievance that a private party can't profit off annotations. Again, quite laughable. The court can simply pay a fee to any private party that helps with annotation. There is also a ridiculous idea in there that granting a monopoly will improve the quality of annotations (through the lack of competition?!!!!) This is high school level reasoning. Yeah, the dissents were ridiculous and not worth the time I spent reading them. Others are free to waste their time like I did, but would advise them not to. They should simply ignore the dissent as it is ridiculous. It can help in lowering the prestige of the Supreme court, but the abortion judgement based off "states rights" already took care of that. The Supreme court sounds like a political jerk fest at this point. At this point, I suspect I have read more than everyone else in this thread. And it was a waste, except that it helped me question Thomas's sanity.
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > I suspect I have read more than everyone else in this thread You read two pages and a Wikipedia article. Come on.
        4y ago
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  Dissents begin on page 22 [1]. [1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-1150_7m58.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-1150_7m58.pdf
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
culi 4y ago
Majority: Roberts, joined by Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh Dissent: Thomas, joined by Alito; Breyer (all but Part II–A and footnote 6) Dissent: Ginsburg, joined by Breyer --- For non-Americans, from most conservative to most liberal: Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Roberts, Ginsburg, Kagan, Breyer, Sotomoyor Woof, if this would've happened in 2022 it would've probably gone the other way since Sotomoyer got replaced with a very conservative justice (Barret)
- bentley 4y ago
  Sotomayor is still on the Court. Barrett replaced Ginsburg, who you’ll notice dissented here. Breyer was also replaced this year (with another liberal). Copyright is one of those issues that is not necessarily clear‐cut between left and right, but more of an opinion specific to an individual justice. In this case, the majority and the dissents were each roughly evenly split between conservatives and liberals, not along (those) ideological lines.
rayiner 4y ago
It’s not so obvious. The annotations weren’t produced by the legislature and do not have the force of law. In a way they’re like any other law book that collects together public opinions and statutes with explanatory text, which are definitely copyrightable. The wrinkle in this case was that the legislature contracted with a private company to add the annotations: > The Commission entered into a work-for-hire agreement with Matthew Bender & Co., Inc., a division of the LexisNexis Group, to prepare annotations Allowing the private company to keep the copyright was basically a way for the legislature trying to get this work done on the cheap. After all if the legislature had told LexisNexis that the work would be public domain, it probably would have had to pay (or pay more) for LexisNexis to do the work. This is typical. There’s myriad ways where the government can get some product or service for less money, or less money up front, by giving up some public right of privilege. The number of people who care about this sort of open government stuff is, unfortunately, pretty limited. I don’t think I know a single person outside HN who mentioned this case when it was pending or decided. And I work in Supreme Court practice! Also, this sort of thing is kinda Georgia’s MO. It attracts residents and businesses from Illinois and New York by having lower taxes. That often means cutting corners on things like this.
- andrewflnr 4y ago
  > The ... do not have the force of law So you're saying this part > the annotated version became the authoritative copy is wrong? Either way, you're describing a situation where the state cheaped out in a way that deprives its residents of their right to know what law governs them. I still call that obvious.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - rayiner 4y ago
    It’s not wrong, but I’m this context “authoritative” doesn’t mean the whole thing is “legally operative.” Here is an example (reckless driving): https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2020/title-40/chapter-6/article-15/section-40-6-390/ https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2020/title-40/chapter-6... The first part, subsections (a) and (b) is the actual law. That’s the only legally operative part that defines what reckless driving is. In most states, that is the only thing that is published. The following sections are explanatory notes that don’t have the force of law and are not law. For example, it cross references relevant case law. In other states private companies will create these annotated versions of the legal code with these cross references, and those are definitely copyrightable.
esbranson 4y ago
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was such a justice who thought prison was allowable for publishing the law. What a hero!

another_story 4y ago

It's worrisome that it was split 5-4 on the issue of copyright with something that was paid for with tax dollars.