“The state of Georgia claims an open records activist broke copyright law — and maybe even committed a terrorist act — by posting the full, annotated versions of the state’s legal code online.
State officials claim in a lawsuit filed last week that Carl Malamud had engaged in an 18-year “crusade to control the accessibility of U.S. government documents” by scanning and reposting the annotated version of the Georgia legal code, which courts often rely on to make decisions on the law, on his website Public.Resource.org.
The state also “points directly to the annotated version as the official laws of the state,” reported Techdirt.” *
Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian (The Point) discuss on The Young Turks. Tell us what you think in the comment section below.
*Read more here http://www.rawstory.com/2015/07/georg…
Comments
This is a stretch…but there is a possible basis for Georgia to bring action if the statutes and court opinions interpreting the law are considered the property of the people (i.e. taxpayers) of the state of Georgia and Mr. Malamud is a resident of a different state. It can be alleged that Mr. Malamud is usurping what is the property of a different state. However, this would be oppressive and frivolous litigation on its face. You can find annotated code books from every state and territory in the Los Angeles Law Library and online. The benefit of diversity of citizenship is that you can raise the case to federal court where they do not “F” around. You may not be able to ask for Rule 11 sanctions for frivolous litigation against the state…but you can against the attorneys. This is what I would do in California.
I am only licensed to practice in California so my remarks only pertain to California law. In my opinion it does not stand to reason that the State of Georgia has “standing” to sue under the copyright law. I understand that Lexis-Nexis did the compilation of the annotations that interpreted the law and that Lexis-Nexis owns the copyright…not the state. Lexis-Nexis may be able to protect their “compilation” under copyright law since a COMPILATION of public domain property IS protected under copyright, but they are not the complainant in this action. Even if Lexis-Nexis does bring court action, Mr. Malamud may have a “fair use” defense since he is only publishing the annotated statutes for educational purposes.
The terrorist claim is off-the-wall crazy. Just what is considered so dangerous about the public knowing the law???