TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Dec 2, 2019

The U.S. Supreme Court will consider a case tomorrow that tests whether annotations in state codes can be copyrighted or whether they are considered “government edicts” — judicial writings and other official legal works published under state authority that are not “the proper subject of private copyright” per an 1888 court decision. In the current case, the state of Georgia argues that annotations — drafted and sold by legal publishers such as LexisNexis — are “derivative works” under the Copyright Act of 1790 and may be copyrighted. Also of interest, a group of “next generation” legal research platforms, including Fastcase, argue in an amicus brief that the government edicts doctrine should control, the ABA Journal reports.