On April 27, the Supreme Court took us on a stroll down memory
lane in its decision in
Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc., referring us back to
its very first copyright case and revisiting the government edicts
doctrine for the first time in more than a century. The Court,
applying logic from Wheaton
v. Peters, along with Banks
v. Manchester, and Callaghan
v. Myers, based its decision on this doctrine, which
limits copyright protection for works created by officials who are
empowered to speak with the force of law. Justice Roberts, writing
for the 5-4 majority, (joined by Justices Gorsuch, Kagan,
Kavanaugh, and Sotomayor) clarified that the doctrine also applies
to legislators, and legislators thus cannot be "authors"
for copyright of the works they create in the course of their
official duties. Accordingly, copyright protection does not
extend to annotations in the State of Georgia's official code
because of its "authors."
