US Justice Department Wants Time in Georgia Copyright Case at SCOTUS
SG says the United States "has a substantial interest in the court's disposition of this case."
October 15, 2019 at 07:00 AM
2 minute read
U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco is seeking 10 minutes of argument time in the U.S. Supreme Court case over Georgia's efforts to impose copyright protection on annotated codes of law and other state and local legal materials.
The Justice Department is backing Georgia.
"The parties' briefing in this Court invokes a Copyright Office manual that addresses the scope of copyright protection for annotations and similar materials," Francisco wrote in his motion seeking argument time. He said the United States "has a substantial interest in the court's disposition of this case."
On Friday, counsel to the respondents—Public.Resource.Org Inc.—filed their merits brief. Public Resource is represented by the Washington litigation boutique Goldstein & Russell. Partner Eric Citron is counsel of record.
"Nothing in copyright law, the seminal cases, or common sense suggests that, by inserting Lexis into a process that begins and ends with state legislative authority and personnel, the state can transform an official legal document that holds itself out as 'published under the authority of the state' into a copyrightable work," Citron writes.
Last year the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, applying the so-called government edicts doctrine, invalidated the state's copyright in the Official Code of Georgia Annotated. Georgia had sued the nonprofit Public.Resource.Org for alleged infringement after it posted volumes of the annotated code online.
"There is a substantial public policy interest in public access to state-created legal edicts for many of the same reasons that Congress decided to make all works of the federal government uncopyrightable," Judge Stanley Marcus wrote. "Namely because providing free access to such works promotes an informed citizenry."
Georgia is represented by Vinson & Elkins counsel Joshua Johnson in Washington. The case is set for argument on Dec. 2.
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