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Oct 23, 2018

Eleventh Circuit Rejects Georgia’s Copyright for the Annotations to the Official Code of Georgia

Georgia Supreme Court: Georgia Code

A government cannot copyright a statute, but what about the annotations to the statute? In Code Revision Commission v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc., Case No. 17-11589 (decided Oct. 19, 2018), the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that the annotations to the Georgia Code were part of the Code and could not be copyrighted by the State of Georgia. Like many state codes, Georgia’s Official Code is published with annotations including describing relevant case law applying the provisions of the Code. Those annotations are prepared by a private company under contract with the State of Georgia. That company… Read more