Supreme Court of the United States Will Consider Whether Publishers Can Copyright Annotated State Codes, Oral Arguments Set For December 2nd

UPDATE December 2nd:

Coverage of the Oral Argument Before Supreme Court of the United States

Transcript of Oral Argument

Media Reports

• Bloomberg Law
• Law360

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END UPDATE
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From ABA Journal:

Carl Malamud is a self-described techie and “open-source activist. This means that he works to improve public access to government records and primary legal materials.

In pursuit of that mission, he has tussled with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the major commercial legal publishers, private groups that develop model building codes and other technical standards, and any number of states.

Malamud’s latest battle, with Georgia, is set to go before the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 2. The 60-year-old Californian would be the first to say the case is a bit wonky. It stems from a 2013 move by the nonprofit organization that he founded, Public.Resource.Org, to purchase a set of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, scan it and put it on the web.

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See Also: Who Owns the Law In Georgia? (via AJC)

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court will take up that question as the justices consider whether the annotated version of Georgia code is protected under copyright law or should be made available to the public free of charge.

The hotly disputed case, pitting the state against an open records proponent, has caught the attention of the Trump administration, whose lawyers say Georgia’s code should be protected. At the same time, news media and civil rights organizations are also weighing in, contending the public should have unhindered access to the state code.

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See Also: 18-1150 Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org

See Also: Case Docket and Other Material (via SCOTUSblog)