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Georgia Lawmakers Sue Carl Malamud For Publishing Georgia Law
TechDirt reports that the state of Georgia is unhappy enough with Carl Malamud for publishing the state's own laws that it's sued Malamud for doing so. From the article:
The specific issue here is that while the basic Georgia legal code is available to the public, the state charges a lot of money for the "Official Code of Georgia Annotated." The distinction here is fairly important -- but it's worth noting that the courts will regularly rely on the annotations in the official code, which more or less makes them a part of the law itself.
The article uses the word "ridiculous" only 10 times; they're taking it easy on the poor legislators.
The Court ruled in Banks v Manchester that case law cannot be copyrighted. The ruling was that writings by a government official, acting in their official capacity, are owned by the public and cannot have copyright protection. That case also brought up a question relevant to this case. Under federal law citizens and residents may hold copyright. Georgia is probably neither, and therefore arguably cannot hold copyright.
In the Banks case, the state had contracted with someone else to produce indexes, etc. The deal was that if the company wrote these extra pieces, they would have copyright protectionfor a couple of years - they didn't get paid to write them, but were allowed exclusive right to sell their version with indexes, etc. The indexes and such were the original work of that citizen. That original work, but not the law itself, could be copyright the author.The finding in this Georgia case may hinge on who wrote the annotations. If government officials wrote them, it's public domain. If a private company wrote the annotations in order to sell them, they may be allowed to do so. HOWEVER, the fact that the STATE is suing indicates the state claims copyright for themselves, and the state will probably lose.
Also, the Court will probably want the law to be accessible, so they'll likely find some logic to rule against the state. Consider the Obamacare care case. The court ruled that the IRS "penalty" for not having insurance is a tax, and therefore within the powers granted to the feds, while also ruling is NOT a tax, and therefore didn't have to originate in the house of representatives. So in the very same ruling they said "it's a tax ... it's not a tax". Translation: we don't want to go head to head with the Obama administration on this one. They sometimes FIND a way to rule whichever way they want to rule, whether of makes any sense or not.
Lets start by clearing something up. The GA legislature creates and passes the statutes - the actual law. The text of the statute is not subject to copyright. The lawsuit does not address the text of the statute. Courts issue decisions interpreting and applying the law. Neither statutes nor court decisions are subject to copyright.
What the lawsuit focuses on are the ANNOTATIONS. The annotations are short topical summaries that briefly explain what a court said about the statute. An annotation is written by someone who works for a publisher, after reading a court case. Lawyers use the annotations as clues to which cases to go read to beter undertand the tricky bits of a statute. Annotations are not written by the couts and not written by the legislature. Annotations are not the law, are not controlling and are not persuasive.
Courts do not cite to the annotations. Lawyers do not quote the annotations in their briefs and motions to the courts. Simply does not happen, since the annotation is not important except as a finding tool, as a way to figure which court decisions are relevant to the legal issue you are researching.
If you read the lawsuit - the state did not create the annotations, a legal publisher did. LexisNexis is one of the two major legal publishers. Apparently, at least part of the annotations are created by LexisNexis as works for hire, under contract from the state. I'd guess that there are annotations not covered by the contract as well, and that LexisNexis could easily bring its own suit.
To claim that copyright on the annotations is preventing people from seeing / knowing what the law is simply silly. The annotations are NOT the law, but a mere finding aid, and the annotated code is available at no charge. One of the links in the original story takes you directly to the LexisNexis website where you can read, without charge, the annotated statute. Far from impeding public access, GA has taken the enlightened step of making the annotated code available oline in a very useable form at no cost to anyone who wants to go look. In most states the statute itself is available, but to get to an annotated version you have to use a lawyers database service, which charges a subscription fee.
Obamacare did originate in the House as HR 3590. (HR meaning House of Representatives.) It was a "shell bill" that was gutted and stuffed with Obamacare to get around the rule. It's not a novel approach either, and the courts took no issue with it.
HR 3590 passed the House first as required, went to the Senate which altered it into Obamacare and then congress "resolved the differences" between the House and Senate versions passed before sending it to the president.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/...
The rational behind starting tax bills in the HR is that it's "closer to the electorate" - or was before Senators were elected by popular vote. Now, the differences between the two as far as being held to the will of the people is lessened.
You could also not buy the car, then you don't need the insurance. It's really no different from requiring manufacturers to build in seatbelts. Ultimately you're buying them with the car and thus are "required" to buy seatbelts. Of course you could also not buy the car and thereby not be required to buy seatbelts.
Other note: I said the author updated the article. He updated it to link to the state of Georgia website, which he says links directly to the annotated code, calling it the "official code of Georgia." He did not follow his own link. The link goes to the unannotated code, hosted by LexisNexis, which identifies itself as "LexisNexis, author of the annotated code." But yeah, following Georgia's link gets you to the unannotated code, which is the official Georgia code.
Yeah yeah, I'm a "copyright is evil and information wants to be anthropomphized" guy, but while copyright exists, I think Georgia is right. This is not the law. The annotations are links to cases where that law was applied. Judges would follow those links and cite the previous decisions, as applicable, never the annotation.
In other states annotations are published and sold by a third party, like WestLaw. The difference here is Georgia owns the annotations itself and sells them to lawyers. If it's no longer worthwhile to do so, what will happen is Georgia will stop commissioning LexisNexis to produce the annotated code, LexisNexis will do it itself and sell copies to both lawyers and the state of Georgia, which will purchase them for judges and prosecutors. Malamud will definitely not win publishing annotations copyrighted by LexisNexis, and now instead of the annotations being revenue neutral (or profitable), the profits will all go to LexisNexis. So, meh.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
You could not use a car. That may be uncomfortable to you and probably cost you your job, but it's not strictly a requirement for you to have a car.
On the other hand, I cannot simply opt out of the law. By the very definition of a law I cannot.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If a private company wrote the annotations in order to sell them, they may be allowed to do so. HOWEVER, the fact that the STATE is suing indicates the state claims copyright for themselves, and the state will probably lose.
The filing itself (as linked to in the techdirt article) says:
The copyrighted annotations include analysis and guidance that are added to the O.C.G.A. by a third party publisher of the O.C.G.A. as a work for hire.
So, yes, Georgia is claiming ownership of the copyright by the state, not the 3rd party author.
That's not true. I'm an appellate attorney and plenty of judges have cured annotations when they couldn't find a better cite.
Check the stacks, there are plenty of examples.
Please keep in mind that I find it insane that the government can hide the law from its citizens; to have a free society the law has to be equal for everyone, and this more than anything else puts a divide between the haves and the have-nots.
I'll just leave this here.
"Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Oh please quit with that "artists" bullshit, it has been shown time and time again to be right up there with "job creators" on the horseshit meter!
Why not tell that to meatloaf who had to file bankruptcy in the 80s because the record company had the 50 foot brass balls to say Bat Out Of Hell I, an album that to this day holds the record for longest time on the top 200, didn't make a dime and so owed him NOTHING. Tell that to Cheap Trick who is STILL suing last I checked because the record company said "Hey downloads didn't exist when you recorded your albums...sucks to be you bitches!" and thus for every iTunes sale they get NOTHING. The exact same is true for movies and TV, which is where the phrase Hollywood Accounting comes from. Tell that to Don Dokken, whose first Dokken album (which he recorded on his own dime) sold nearly a quarter million only to get told by the record company "that's great now you only owe us half a million dollars for 'promotional expenses', tough break" and thus gave the band NOTHING.
The current copyright system HARMS the artist, as it allows rich old white fucks to become the eternal gatekeepers by making endless bank on back catalogs which the artists don't see a fucking cent of in a good 90% of the cases. Oh and you might want to ask the Stones how much they get on all their classic albums, which with current copyright laws won't go into public domain until after your grandkids are dead...did you say "not a single cent"? Then you are correct because according to Keith Richards they haven't gotten a penny from their 60s albums since the mid 70s...wanna guess where all those profits from all those classic albums went? If you said "the pockets of rich old white fucks that didn't have shit to do with actually creating it" then you are actually learning, congrats.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.