Appeals Court Tells Georgia: State Code Can’t be Copyrighted | Electronic Frontier Foundation

peter.suber's bookmarks 2018-10-27

Summary:

"In a democracy, people should have the right to read, and publish, the law. In theory, that should be easier than ever today. The Internet has vastly improved public access to the “operating system” of our government—the local, state, and federal statutes and regulations we are expected to abide by.

Unfortunately, some states have actually fought against easy access to the law. In Georgia, state officials have used copyright to extract fees and reward companies with state contracts.

On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit handed down a powerful opinion [PDF] that struck down the state of Georgia’s attempt to use copyright to suppress publication of its own laws. The ruling, which gives Georgians the right to read and publish the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, or OCGA, may also improve public access to legislative documents in other states. It’s just in time for this year’s Open Access Week, a time to celebrate the social benefits that we all reap when information is readily accessible...."

Link:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/10/appeals-court-tells-georgia-state-code-cant-be-copyrighted

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » peter.suber's bookmarks

Tags:

oa.new oa.usa oa.law oa.usa.ga oa.litigation oa.oa_week oa.pd oa.copyright

Date tagged:

10/27/2018, 13:49

Date published:

10/27/2018, 06:09