Following up on an earlier blog post about the State of Georgia’s ability to copyright the annotations to the Official Code of Georgia Annotated (“OCGA”), the U.S. Supreme Court finally weighed in last month. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion, which applied the government edicts doctrine in rejecting Georgia’s infringement challenge against a non-profit
Eleventh Circuit
Copyright for Annotations to Legal Text?
By Elizabeth A. Patton on
During this coming term, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear an interesting case involving the State of Georgia’s ability to copyright the annotations to the Official Code of Georgia Annotated (“OCGA”). The issue is framed as follows: “Whether the government edicts doctrine extends to—and thus renders uncopyrightable—works that lack the force of law, such as…
Supreme Court to Decide Copyright Circuit-Split
By Elizabeth A. Patton on
Yesterday the United States Supreme Court announced that it was granting the petition for writ of certiorari in the copyright infringement case previously discussed on this blog here and here. The case is Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com LLC and involves the question of when a copyright holder can properly file a…
Will SCOTUS Resolve the Copyright Registration Debate?
By Elizabeth A. Patton on
Last month, a journalism collective called the Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. (“Fourth Estate”) petitioned the United States Supreme Court to review a decision issued by the Eleventh Circuit involving the question of when a copyright holder can properly file a copyright infringement lawsuit. At issue is 17 U.S.C. § 411(a), which states that “no…