Carl Malamud's Response To Georgia's Lawsuit Over The Copyright Of Its Annotated Code

We've written a couple of articles about the decision by the state of Georgia to sue Carl Malamud for posting its "Official Code of Georgia Annotated" online for people to read. As we noted in a later post, while the legal issues here are potentially complex, the basic moral issues are not: why would you ever want the "official" code of laws to be covered by copyright? The legal argument in favor of saying the OCGA is covered by copyright is that it's just the "annotations" (which discuss the caselaw related to the legal statutes), and it's developed by a private third party (LexisNexis) which then assigns the copyright to the state. But the very fact that the state repeatedly refers to and points to the annotated copy as its "official" law, and the fact that such annotations help the public more clearly understand the law, makes the argument fairly weak. And now, Malamud has filed his answer and counterclaims to the lawsuit, basically saying: (1) this is not covered by copyright in the first place and if it is then (2) it's fair use and if it's not fair use then it's (3) copyright misuse -- and finally if all that (and a few other things) fail, that stopping Malamud from posting such things would be "inimical to the public interest." The response also takes at least some issue with the fact that the State of Georgia called Carl Malamud a "terrorist" for daring to publish a copy of its laws. Again, while the specific legal arguments here are interesting, I'm still at a loss as to why the state of Georgia thinks this is a wise use of taxpayer dollars. Even if it "wins," it does not come out of this lawsuit looking good. Bullying the guy who's helping to make your legal code more accessible doesn't seem like a good plan for government. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story