Georgia Loses Legal Code Copyright Clash At Supreme Court

schwit1 writes: Georgia lost a close U.S. Supreme Court case over the state’s ability to copyright its annotated legal code, in a ruling that dissenting justices said would shock states with similar arrangements. Copyright protection doesn’t extend to the annotations in the state’s official annotated code, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for a 5-4 majority on Monday that crossed ideological lines. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh joined Roberts. The state’s lawyer warned at the oral argument that a ruling against it would “blow up” not only Georgia’s copyright regime but similar ones in about a third of the states with similar setups. Indeed, the ruling “will likely come as a shock to the 25 other jurisdictions — 22 States, 2 Territories, and the District of Columbia — that rely on arrangements similar to Georgia’s to produce annotated codes,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a dissent joined by Justice Samuel Alito and partially by Justice Stephen Breyer. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote her own dissent, joined by Breyer. Further reading: Supreme Court Says Georgia’s ‘Official Code’ Is Public Domain — Including Annotations.