If you publish Georgia’s state laws, you’ll get sued for copyright and lose

[Scipio]

Is the law available in non-annotated form though? The way it reads it's as if the state only publishes the annotated one.

The official compilation is available only in the annotated form.
So what the court is saying is that its OK to copy the official law compilation, but you have to cut and paste around all the annotations.

It doesn't appear there was clear precedent on this.  The Court cited to a bunch of old cases holding that annotations to statues are copyrightable.  That's true but doesn't address the situation where the annotations are integrally incorporated ("merged into") into the sole official statutory compilation.  The court's opinion is defensible but will be interesting to see how it is handled if appealed up the line.

Right, but it's a non-crazy, non-asshole decision.

[grumbler]

Right, but it's a non-crazy, non-asshole decision.

I don't know about crazy, but if the judges are lawyers, it can hardly be a non-asshole decision.

Georgia should simply change the law so that Lexus/Nexus annotations to Georgia statutes are unofficial, don't carry the force of law, and are not citable.  Most states do that and haven't even been burned down once.

[dps]

Obviously, Sherman wasn't thorough enough.

[DontSayBanana]

Is the law available in non-annotated form though? The way it reads it's as if the state only publishes the annotated one.

The official compilation is available only in the annotated form.
So what the court is saying is that its OK to copy the official law compilation, but you have to cut and paste around all the annotations.

It doesn't appear there was clear precedent on this.  The Court cited to a bunch of old cases holding that annotations to statues are copyrightable.  That's true but doesn't address the situation where the annotations are integrally incorporated ("merged into") into the sole official statutory compilation.  The court's opinion is defensible but will be interesting to see how it is handled if appealed up the line.

Right, but it's a non-crazy, non-asshole decision.

Sure...if you consider it in a vacuum; if you look at it through the lens of § 50-18-70(h) in the Georgia Code, there's this little nugget:

Additionally, if an agency contracts with a private vendor to collect or maintain public records, the agency shall ensure that the arrangement does not limit public access to those records and that the vendor does not impede public record access and method of delivery as established by the agency or as otherwise provided for in this Code section.

Saying that you've got to submit an open records request or cough up over $1,000 to get a copy usable in court takes some pretty magical thinking to come to the conclusion that the vendor isn't "impeding public access."

[Scipio]

Is the law available in non-annotated form though? The way it reads it's as if the state only publishes the annotated one.

The official compilation is available only in the annotated form.
So what the court is saying is that its OK to copy the official law compilation, but you have to cut and paste around all the annotations.

It doesn't appear there was clear precedent on this.  The Court cited to a bunch of old cases holding that annotations to statues are copyrightable.  That's true but doesn't address the situation where the annotations are integrally incorporated ("merged into") into the sole official statutory compilation.  The court's opinion is defensible but will be interesting to see how it is handled if appealed up the line.

Right, but it's a non-crazy, non-asshole decision.

Sure...if you consider it in a vacuum; if you look at it through the lens of § 50-18-70(h) in the Georgia Code, there's this little nugget:

Additionally, if an agency contracts with a private vendor to collect or maintain public records, the agency shall ensure that the arrangement does not limit public access to those records and that the vendor does not impede public record access and method of delivery as established by the agency or as otherwise provided for in this Code section.

Saying that you've got to submit an open records request or cough up over $1,000 to get a copy usable in court takes some pretty magical thinking to come to the conclusion that the vendor isn't "impeding public access."

I ain't no fucking coding genius, but I think I found a solution to your fucking problem:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/gacode/

[grumbler]

I ain't no fucking coding genius, but I think I found a solution to your fucking problem:

https://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/gacode/

It's pretty fucking ironic that the fucking State of Georgia is fucking protecting the text of the laws that the fucking taxpayers are paying for from being copied by the fucking taxpayers who fucking paid for it.

It's fucking typical of fucking government employees and fucking politicians, though; they fucking forget awfully fucking fast who the fuck they fucking work for.

Fuck!

[CountDeMoney]

I see grumbler accidentally took twice his glycerin dosage today. 

[grumbler]

I see grumbler accidentally took twice his glycerin dosage today.

No, I just channeled what I thought a Seedy post would look like responding to an attempt by Scip to become the leading user of the word fuck.