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3rd May 2020, 06:40 AM | #1 |
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Supreme Court Versus Georgia
Interesting split from the court (I agree with the majority):
The Supreme Court ruled Monday against the state of Georgia in a copyright lawsuit over annotations to its legal code, finding they cannot be copyrighted. Everyone involved in the case agreed that the text of state statutes could not be copyrighted. But the state of Georgia argued that it could copyright annotations that are distributed with the official code. These annotations provide supplemental information about the law, including summaries of judicial opinions, information about legislative history, and citations to relevant law review articles. The annotations are produced by a division of legal publishing giant LexisNexis under a work-for-hire contract with the state. The copyright status of the annotated code matters because the state doesn't publish any other official version. You can get an unofficial version of state law for free from LexisNexis' website, but LexisNexis' terms of service explicitly warned users that it might be inaccurate. The company also prohibits users from scraping the site's content or using it commercially. If you need the official, up-to-date version of Georgia state law, you have to pay LexisNexis hundreds of dollars for a copy of the official version—which includes annotations. https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/202...e-lawsuit.html For what it’s worth, the justices who think it’s fine to not let citizens know how the laws apply to them (without spending hundreds of dollar’s) are: Thomas Alito Breyer Ginsburg |
3rd May 2020, 06:59 AM | #2 |
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3rd May 2020, 07:05 AM | #3 |
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3rd May 2020, 07:08 AM | #4 |
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3rd May 2020, 07:15 AM | #5 |
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3rd May 2020, 07:16 AM | #6 |
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3rd May 2020, 07:40 AM | #7 |
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3rd May 2020, 07:50 AM | #8 |
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3rd May 2020, 09:24 AM | #9 |
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But it better not happen again
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3rd May 2020, 09:36 AM | #10 |
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The pairing of Thomas and Alito with Breyer and Ginsburg should give you a clue that maybe there are some serious legal issues here. What exactly do you perceive as the glorious future arising from this decision? That Lexis-Nexus will continue to do the grunt work of annotating Georgia state law, even though they can't charge people for accessing it?
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3rd May 2020, 09:47 AM | #11 |
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3rd May 2020, 09:52 AM | #12 |
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Good idea.
But that option would have been available even if the dissent had carried the day. I'm not sure which side of the issue I would have been on had I studied the problem in depth (and as Bob correctly pointed out, the court's job isn't to produce the best policy outcome anyways), but it seems like no matter what the outcome of this case, the Georgia legislature probably should probably change how they do things anyways. |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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3rd May 2020, 10:21 AM | #13 |
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3rd May 2020, 10:29 AM | #14 |
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3rd May 2020, 10:42 AM | #15 |
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"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" -Mark Twain "Half of what he said meant something else, and the other half didn't mean anything at all" -Rosencrantz, on Hamlet |
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3rd May 2020, 11:36 AM | #16 |
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3rd May 2020, 11:53 AM | #17 |
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I agree. However, it does not follow from this that L-N is required to give up its lawful copyright to the materials it produced.
It also does not follow from this that such annotations are part of the law as such. It seems to me that the proper remedy is for the state of Georgia to either write the annotations into a bill, and pass them into law; or else for the state of Georgia to commission annotations under a commons license. There is a basic principle that the people who do the work should get compensated for it, and that others should not benefit from that work without giving fair compensation. This principle is embodied in copyright law. The court cannot - or at least should not - nullify existing law simply because somebody somewhere feels very strongly that it should be otherwise than it is. |
3rd May 2020, 11:55 AM | #18 |
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3rd May 2020, 12:22 PM | #19 |
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Does it say whose bright idea this was? Was it a revenue generating scheme or something else?
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3rd May 2020, 12:57 PM | #20 |
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Why is it that eminent domain always seems to be employed in bad faith?
L-N contracted with the state in good faith. They did the work they were hired to do. They received the agreed compensation. If L-N suspected the state was just going to waive their legal rights and grab the work from them anyway, they might have thought twice about doing the work. Or they might have negotiated a much more equitable deal before signing the contract. Your proposal seems like gangsterism, to me. Also, it seems disingenuous to use eminent domain to seize from others work that you could have done, and should have done, yourself. Lexis-Nexis is not the villain here. They should not be treated like one. |
3rd May 2020, 01:01 PM | #21 |
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It's just an AP blurb.
https://apnews.com/633afdad7292829aea38124fca61ee2c Did you really think someone was doing investigative journalism on this? |
3rd May 2020, 01:06 PM | #22 |
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3rd May 2020, 01:10 PM | #23 |
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"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" -Mark Twain "Half of what he said meant something else, and the other half didn't mean anything at all" -Rosencrantz, on Hamlet |
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3rd May 2020, 01:10 PM | #24 |
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3rd May 2020, 01:22 PM | #25 |
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Neither of these is how copyright actually works.
If the state didn't want or couldn't use copyrighted material, they should not have commissioned copyrighted material. Nor should we tolerate the government commissioning copyrighted material and then denying its copyright. |
3rd May 2020, 01:25 PM | #26 |
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"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" -Mark Twain "Half of what he said meant something else, and the other half didn't mean anything at all" -Rosencrantz, on Hamlet |
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3rd May 2020, 01:42 PM | #27 |
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But it isn't access to the laws. It's access to annotations written by a third party which has no legal force. Such annotations may be useful, but it certainly isn't the actual laws. I'm not denied access to the laws because I have to pay for a law textbook, even though a law textbook can certainly be useful in understanding the law.
But does a single person here actually know what these annotations even look like? I certainly don't. I've got no idea whether this is the sort of stuff that might be useful to a layperson or whether it's only useful for legal specialists. |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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3rd May 2020, 01:47 PM | #28 |
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"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect" -Mark Twain "Half of what he said meant something else, and the other half didn't mean anything at all" -Rosencrantz, on Hamlet |
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3rd May 2020, 01:53 PM | #29 |
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3rd May 2020, 02:12 PM | #30 |
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The issue is that the free version is:
“The copyright status of the annotated code matters because the state doesn't publish any other official version. You can get an unofficial version of state law for free from LexisNexis' website, but LexisNexis' terms of service explicitly warned users that it might be inaccurate” If there was a certified accurate, official version that was free (without annotations) then this would be a different conversation. But the only free version being inaccurate and unofficial... no thanks. |
3rd May 2020, 02:13 PM | #31 |
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"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
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3rd May 2020, 02:14 PM | #32 |
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3rd May 2020, 02:15 PM | #33 |
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3rd May 2020, 02:21 PM | #34 |
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Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get to me. . |
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3rd May 2020, 02:22 PM | #35 |
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3rd May 2020, 02:45 PM | #36 |
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You are wrong about this:
You are wrong about this too: The copyright was indeed privately held. If the copyright was to be held by the state government, then the state government should have included that in the contract, instead of trying to declare by fiat after the fact. Again, L-N abided by the contract, and has abided by their legal entitlement to copyright. They have done nothing wrong. This entire situation was created by the state in bad faith. |
3rd May 2020, 02:47 PM | #37 |
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Delete
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3rd May 2020, 02:50 PM | #38 |
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Annotations:
Quote:
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3rd May 2020, 02:56 PM | #39 |
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Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get to me. . |
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3rd May 2020, 03:12 PM | #40 |
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