Reason.com: “The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5–4 today that the state of Georgia can’t claim copyright over its annotated code. The ruling is a victory for Carl Malamud, an open government activist who posted the state’s annotated code online in 2013. Malamud and his organization, Public.Resource.Org, have been working for more than a decade to digitally liberate state laws and regulatory codes. State governments often claim they must copyright the works to recoup the costs of researching and printing the voluminous editions. Georgia contracts with LexisNexus to research and distribute the annotated codes. LexisNexus then gets exclusive rights to publish the codes, while Georgia gets a cut of any sales. The non-annotated codes are available for free, but the hardcover annotated set costs $412. Malumud and transparency groups say that flies in the face of precedents that the law cannot be copyrighted. Under the “government edicts doctrine,” this applies to judicial opinions, legislative statutes, and other writings that have the force of law. As a matter of public policy, citizens must be able to inspect the laws they are bound by, and no one can claim authorship or ownership of them. In short, they belong to the people. After Public.Resource.Org posted Georgia’s annotated code online for free, the state sued Malamud in federal court in 2015. A U.S. District Court judge ruled in favor of the state in 2017, finding that the annotations were only commentary and didn’t carry the force of law. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision, setting up a circuit split and a showdown at the Supreme Court…”