official code are categorically in eligible for copyright protection that holding conflicts with the straightforward application of the copyright act taxed and this court's precedents starting with the statute sections one  and three of the act expressly provide that annotations are copyrightable derivative works nothing in the acts support stripping george's annotations of copyright protection merely because they were prepared by a contractor on behalf of a state agency therefore the crux of the parties dispute is whether this chords in one thousand dollars century precedence support a decision different from the one that would be reached by applying standard interpretive principles to the copyright acts playing taxed they do not in fact those decisions strongly favor georgia together they hold that while judicial opinions are not copyrightable and it asians added to opinions by courts official reporter are copyrightable works of authorship similarly while statutory text is not affirming the decision below would scuttle numerous states regimes for publishing annotated official codes absent direction from congress this court should not extend a judge may doctrine to override the system's established by numerous states democratically elected governments i invite questions but as a diverse court case rests heavily single sentence and that sentence says that the whole work done by the judges constitutes the authentic exposition and interpretation of the law which is binding on every citizen and i free for publication to all so we read that sentence as establishing the principle that a work is not copyrightable if it is of a type that can serve as a vehicle for think that the thing that's official is the code so it's the official code of georgia under the just whatever the additional material is included in it it does appear in the same publication that's correct and i don't think that that makes a difference for purposes of copyright under this court's precedent and i think that that's clear from wheaton in callahan's so in both of those cases the court said they had a quarter point it official reporter could hold copyright and annotations that appeared in the reporter volumes so this case is really just the legislative analogue of callahan and callahan the court held that the official reporter could hold copyright in things like had notes at the top of a decision and if you look at the judicial decision summaries in the g a a they are materially indistinguishable from those had no here if the state legislatures treat judges and state legislature differently well i think it's different because the general assembly is not enacting individual  s through bi cameral ism in presentments so the annotations are st prepared by a commercial publisher or so by a contractor and they do that subject to the supervision of the coder of vision commission  do it as as little a protocol it is for hire so the one that little of the copyright would be the state the state does hold the copyright that is correct very much like how an official reporter held the copyright we in callahan's so here the code revision commission acting on behalf of the state obtains a copyright for the state but i think the crucial point under bangs is that the a not individually reviewed by legislators they do not go through the process of bi cameral ism and present mental but counsel until you prove they were at least approved as a whole by the legislature so i think the eleven circuits perhaps a little confusing on this issue by i don't think that there's any disagreement about the underlying facts the answer is as the th circuit said in its opinion the annotations are not individually enacted i understand that a positive the statutory tax to be merged with the end it ok all right so if that's the case and you include the word official on it presumably you're doing that to create some value for the reporter why would we allow thought you disavow the argument that it's only things that bind for which copyrights unavailable so our position is that if a work is of a type that as a class can serve as a vehicle for stabli binding law like judicial opinion and aren't annotations in that category or at the frequently used state courts as indications of the legislature's intentions know not the type of annotations that we're talking about here we're talking practice in procedure c so you're disavowing that they're ever used by state courts as indications of legislative intent that never happens because they are representation or making to this court the annotations would never be used as an indication of legislative intent asked that they be included in the code and often the people who write them are involved in actually drafting the statutes georgia courts do cite those comments but we are not claiming copyright in those annotations piero's free author is different so it's the state bar the state bar if it wanted to make a copyright claim would have to be the one that's making the copyright plain i don't think that i think probably those would not be copyrightable if the state bar was trying to make a copyright law i think it now i think there could be maybe a debate or dispute about this but i think that they probably would not be copyrightable because they are offered for the purpose of providing a gloss  on the tax drafters intent for the statutory tax in some cases and courts in georgia have treated them as such why would the georgia bar have particular insight into the intent of the legislature in acting a provision of law well often in my understanding from reading the introductory text to these comments is that there are often drafted by people who were involved in drafting the legislation so even though a bar committee member isn't in the legislature there are often involved in assisting with the drafting of the legislation now but for how those people could be involved in the drafting of legislation that could have been proposed by some interest group it could have been something that was worked on by a law professor so what distinguishes those could be those would be copyrightable student wouldn't they be if they somebody like that wrote an article so with distinguishes them from the comments of the georgia bar so i think it's perhaps a different because the georgia a bar has specifically asked for these comments to be included in the o c ga and georgia courts have treated them as having some authoritative weight so i think that that's what makes it different but i want to stress that the comments are not a issue in this case i'm just trying to give rideable i didn't actually and reading this brief understand that i'm not sure the court below do because they relied on the commons as one of the reasons for why this was attributable to the state defer the very reasons you're giving that the state asked for them that the state commission who prepares them is involved generally in the drafting of the law and so i don't think they separated out that the only thing you were seeking copyright protection for is the the research comments and the what tell me asians because it's prepared by the judge it remans to see if we was not an independent contractor and what was an independent contractor and actually saw the copyright is setting it out there as a merge document with the actual laws it may have merger doesn't mean it's actual law but neither are headnotes actual law dick that is not actual opinions so why isn't authorship really the most important factor i think if it's going to explain the law either by reference to comments or by reference to cases that reflect its intent isn't that an explanation of the fischel explanation of the law so i think we win if authorship is the standard and i think that that's basically the united states is cast in the united states agrees that we win under that standard and on their question of what or no it doesn't because it sort of limits it thinks that it's not official it is some sort of unofficial way even though it's approved by the legislature it's it's merged by its very terms it's a contract for hire which means you treat it like an employee if a law clerk prepares my head nurse or my summaries i don't think i can get a car he or she can get a copy write it i don't think i think it a copyrighted even as a work for hire well i think that the answer can be that the fact that this is an official document makes a difference for copyright purposes under wheaton and callahan again those were official reporters and if the official notice of the document uncopyrightable then almost in mean all state government documents in some way or official they come from the state government but the one thing that we know is that congress made the policy determination to allow state governments to have georgia have an official annotated code and why not just an official code i think it's for the benefit of readers so that those finding needs are present and i think the reason why they made it official is because they wanted to have an annotate version subject to a price cap so that it would be available to people at a relatively low price governmental i mean i thought this isn't that difficult with a judge does something in his judicial capacity it is not copyrighted if a legislator do something or a group of legislators in their legislative capacity it is not copyrightable who cares who the author is their public policy reasons that have existed forever in law that you make those two things copyrightable the executive is hard to separate out but you could do it now that i think is basically the s g s is it if it's not in the earth or some capacity if it's simply a summary or it's a comment upon something done in  different position so i guess my question is is there a position at least vying to stand acceptable to you the as she's position is acceptable to us and we win under that standard perhaps it would be helpful for me to explain quickly why we do wen she and mr chief justice to me please the court this court and banks determined there was consensus that no copyright exists in a work bar i quote judicial officers in the discharge of their judicial duties banks then held that a judge who in his judicial capacity prepares an opinion or decisions in on the materials is not regarded as the author within the meaning of the copyright statute those principles from the traditional context also apply in the law making context so if a lawmaker acts in his capacity as a lawmaker and creates a work in the discharge of his law making duties that is within the process for creating law no copyright exists now in this case this case is going to be controlled however by callahan callahan upheld a copyright in annotations to judicial decisions by an official court reporter a salaried public officer of the court who was appointed removable by the court such annotations are written after the fact as an attempt to accurately describe or provide context for the underlying source mr again and finishes and and so i was just go write them themselves but they supervise the process carefully they were they they imposed some kind of editorial staff what then i don't know that that would make a difference to the bottom line  yes because the commission is composed of fifteen individuals five of which are not even in the legislative process in harrison the supreme court of georgia recognize that those non legislative people could actually make the difference in any kind of decision do so but the legislature sets up this commission and puts a bunch of its members on this commission and let's say in my hypothetical world this commission actually takes its job seriously and imposes some editorial standards for what will and will not go into the end it ation still same result and but it's also in the context of the rest of this case section one hundred and eleven the statutory portion of the the what's s pretty carefully as guides to what that law is all about well if they don't and if the commission is basically involved in in what should be in and what shouldn't be in to explain to people what the law means why would that be copyrightable i don't think they're actually explaining what the law means they're describing what other this is better than callahan because in callahan the reporter was a weekly superintended by the court right could have been removed by the court was hired by a court appointed by the court here they're describing what rd parties do what courts do to the extent there's any relationship it's only with the legislature and even there it's attenuated so you think you and if the commission actually wrote the annotations it would still that's right because look at the end patients are under this contract they are intended to be comprehensive they don't say this is a good opinion this is right this is wrong they just want to cover the waterfront right or wrong accurately describe the judicial sources that are out there the attorney general's opinions all reviews other types of secondary alar as these types of things would make a difference to finding if if instead of the commission it were done by the legislature itself you know i think that would be a little more clear all they do is describe  do after the for oh no i think that would be the same but i think you would let me say it was adopted by the legislature too and let's say we put the word official on it for whatever good that does market market power wise then what well done as it is done here which i think if you look for instance in the respondents read that page three the be prepared says the official code and is prepared by the commission legislative council alexis and then the next page they are doing it in the same way which is they could it's not just one of the house of the right i mean that's what it comes down to it's not its legislative capacity it's in some other abstract capacity of which the legislature can act that is our understanding as drawn from the answer is no take that idea and bring it down to the legislature and making laws where you have some words on pieces of paper and they are performing a function that is a legislative function or a judicial function no it's not solely an expression it's performing a function and we don't allow it because to let a monopolist get ahold of that is dangerous well i don't and that's that's what i thought that the argument was as i got i'm not sure there's any disagreement what i intended to could they copyright those and and charge for them and preclude others from copying them and disseminating them if for instance this is like a your it's let me draw an example when you do when the court adopts rules for three rules of civil procedure others are often advisory committee notes that explain kind of context we is that copyright we understand that no we understand that to be in the copyrightable materials prepared for that process are not copyrightable alas the individual the state didn't require them or come or create them so why is that an official guide to an official code where the annotations merged with the coup that are prepared by this why aren't those copyrightable why aren't they wonders a few things that are i think incorrect in the premise one if you look at callahan you had annotations by the official court reporter superintended by the court combined in the suit of all still copyright so the fact that they're together not relevant  one we're talking about annotations here we're talking about a description of case one case one says the statute means x case to the statute means why they reproduce both of them they're not saying that one of those weren't really supposed to commission when it supervised part of it supervision it looked over the entity and it picked out a few that it thought were a religious slee wrong in terms of interpreting the law would that make a difference you know i think it would start to be a little harder it starts to sound a lot like more like host an act meant legislative history if it were done by the legislature a little bit harder but that still copyrightable if the if the commission is saying no that's an incorrect interpretation of law you know i'll take out that  think because the commission is again making observation with respect to what the other parties do they don't have any particular expertise it's not the legislature itself doing this ok now i'm going to go back to this discourse as how about the legislature if the legislature did that i think there would be a question whether that is part of the legislative process is the right direction isn't that banks i mean is that the potentially just discourse which is hypothetical the distinction between banks and callahan or not well i think ban you give up that hypothetical we could give it up but let me let me take a step back and say we can look start looking to the fringes of this case but when we look at the core of what this is about and the way that this is the reason this test that we think flows from banks and callahan is one it takes care of the real world consequences here thank you coun chief justice and may please the court and it's useful to remember that the question presented in this case is whether the government edicts doctrine extends to documents that lack the force of law answer to that question is clearly yes united states agrees with us that asked to be yes that's required by the court's decision in banks and it seems necessary unless legislative history agency guidance documents unpublished judicial decisions are going to be subject to copyright ga hasn't proposed an alternative test but we've proposed a test that we've drawn from the language in this court's decisions particularly wheaton as it was understood by just a story and callahan which adopted that understanding and asks too straightforward questions is this a legal work and is it published under the authority of the state if it is then it can't be copyrighted and that makes sense because states don't publish authentic state legal works for the purposes of making money or maximizing profit they publish them so that people will understand their legal obligations and so you do not need the copyright incentive to ensure that these works get made is it different or is it the state hires an official whose story this story and dog is to write the history of the state of georgia after a committee reads it and says yes and they stamp it official they have a copyright contract so they get the stake in the conduct of the copyright copyright and i think that is copyrightab why is that copyrightable and yet a comment made by the professor's cousin who happens to teach in law school is not copyrightable good comment being on the state of the law the comment being a summary of the cases the comment being the the six things listed on page whatever page four hundred and ninety seven of the seven things how is that different i guess i w answer both parts of the question moment take the nd part st i don't think a law professor is speaking in the voice of the state or that something a law professor publishes is published under the authority of the state so that would be copyrightable under our test and nor do i think that official state history is a legal work and so that wouldn't be captured by our test either and there is a difference because when the state speaks we speak in the states voice but this back to a legal work you're serving a kind of authority that has value that it doesn't have  the state publish its poetry i understand mr citron that s g is essentially saying well for these annotations the state is not telling you what it thinks about the law the state is doing no more and no less than what west law does so the state's view of the law is just like why should we treat the two differently i don't think they're the same for two reasons one is the is intentions are produced in the name of the voice the code revision commission and the code revision commission is not a non entity cobra vision commissions are responsible for assembling the text of the statute and the other things that go into the official code and look in the united states context twenty seven of the titles of the united states code are simply the product of a code revision commission they aren't in acted as texts so these coalition commissions they do exercise a legislative function function  they produces the summary of what they add they are responsible for but the court is not responsible for it and that's the big difference being the official reporter doesn't prevent you from adding whatever you want to the report if henry wheaton had added things the court didn't like it to the eight hundred and fifteen term report they're not required to pay him for the eight hundred and sixteen dollars term but they can't pull the eight hundred and fifteen dollars term report off the shelves it's up to him what goes in that book that's the complete opposite of what happens finalized under the direct supervision of the code would be the dipshit what's the difference when the commission and the and the reporter i'm sorry the difference between the commissioner and the reporter a court reporter commission other words how do you deal with callahan and sweden i guess and how we're going to bring in the the six circuit decision i guess now i think the difference is that the classic judicial reporter particularly in the one thousand nine hundred century which is what we should try to keep in mind spoke in their own voice when they be worth a lot in court just like legislative history in front of many judges is not worth a lot in court but it's still an authentic state legal document it still comes through in the voice of the state this is some have said anything other than the label that's a put on this volume suppose they put they made it clear in labeling the volume but the law itself is the official the code itself is the official law of the stave of georgia all the rest is not official with that take care of a problem i don't think it would take care of the problem in the following sense if the state is the one that actually puts together the entity actions and it's known that these are the states imitations labeling part of an official and part of an unofficial is not going to do the trick but that does go a long  i think our main objection is when you confer officiality on these documents you speak in the states voice that's the thing you can't copyright if they wanted to have the official code of georgia with annotations by lexus they could certainly in both we and in taliban both opinion mentioned that the cover pages said that these reports were by the individuals not by the state and so the state wasn't claiming ownership or title to the senate station's correct that's right that's different from here where neither lexis nor am i wrong i don't think the annotation tells us who and i didn't look specifically i mean the reason the th circuit got confused about whether these comments were who they were authored by and whether they were distinguishable from the other kinds of an which they claim copyright is there isn't anything on the face of the entity to tell you who wrote them or who's responsible for the r i could you please take the government's test you articulated and you tell me why the their i think their test the simplest understanding is the following the koger vision commission is in two critical respects like the legislature or exercising a legislative or law making  function st it discharges its duties entirely for the behalf at the behest of and for the benefit of the legislature and the georgia supreme court has told us that this is an exercise of the legislative authority for purposes of georgia constitutional law so trying to draw some line between the code revision commission and the legislature would be i think in off and back on top of that code revision commissions are exercising a legislative function they assemble the text of the statutes if you were to adopt a rule that the code revision commission does not speak for the state in states like new york where the statutory text is put together by a code revision commission you could copyright the statutory text itself because those others i think it's what you mean by in no sense the law which is a i think a complicated concept when it bears the state's imprimatur is the law in some sense it may not be worth very much the state can say look this is just informational just the way the i r s want to put out an f a q about how this file your tax return says well this is just informational a court might take a different view of it but when the state is telling you this is a good summary of the status of of the case you're going to treat that differently and it's not for nothing well they're not saying it's a good summary or bad some summary they may take comments from used by courts as an authentic source of law probably shouldn't be copyrighted because they are offered as intended gloss on the code in their complaint this is what they say the judicial annotations are there for quote they must be clear from the crafted lexus in order to illustrate and interpret the code sections of the o c ga that's what they're there for the state puts them there to illustrate and help interpret the code for its users they aren't the law you can't cite them in the sense of this but look at the sanitation here just the way the notes that are at the end of the federal rules of civil procedure aren't going to overrule the text of the rule but they do count for something because they come in the states question i mean i agree you've clarified everybody to me i mean the question is what function does this particular set of words play in the law and if we look at the precedent back where justice ginsburg was with you tarred permitted to see that it plays much more of a precedent than we i mean much more of a role than wheat and sanitations and i can think of cases where a lot of people would say in respect to west look we respect the lexus and probably here i yes that's what they say but go read the case my friend and it isn't as good as summaries you think all right so what you'd have to show is that the fish will westlaw actually plays a larger role in the law in a law making function than does westlaw i doubt that there's something here that shows that  maybe there is i'll give you my best shot ok there are no cases in georgia that have ever cited west's unofficial and heated court code of georgia because it's not official and it's not something you would bring to court and say well look an editor of west law tells us that this is that this case is relevant or that this statute became effective on this date there are lots of cases that cite the annotations to the o c ga as such in georgia for lots of different kinds of propositions one question that is i think justice ginsburg asked it is it is some of your examples there government documents with a point of view and and when you think about one of these books it doesn't look like it has a point of view it looks like there annotations of cases on both sides of an issue and and as long as we don't have any sense that the state is editing in order to create a point of view you know why doesn't that make a difference but so that true of the judicial annotations because the judicial editions are themselves summaries of the cases i would say they have a point of view about the cases they will tell you what they think is important about those cases but they don't purport to comment this is was this is a a well decided case the reasoning here is poor i will say this state wants to focus on the judicial annotations because it's hard to imagine using them this way you should really focus on the editor's notes which are also an annotation over which they are asserting copyright in this case i want to bracket they claim copyright over everything in this case they decided not to assert against some of the work effective whether it was the product of a veto override or how it was enacted and it can be extremely important to deciding a case so one of the cases that we point to where this an editor's note was cited is cited for the proposition that proposition and that's the reason this person is acquitted is as there is is there any other source for that proposition sure you could go back to the statute at large just like you could for all the non positive law titles of the u there were an award given out by the law review commission every year for the best treatise in a particular area in other words it would prove we think this is you know the best treatise and as a result it's cited more frequently and authoritatively than other treatises that is that change the copyright status i don't think so because i don't think that that treatise is still speaking with the authority of the state you know they can say this is a good tree this in general you should look at it but none of propositions there have been adopted and the treatise author certainly doesn't write with authority right at miller act that the courts are going to cite that treatise and you know with some probably more frequency than than others so the fact that you have this editor's note that tells you it's retroactive that's not what makes it retroactive the fact is there's something else that the that editor is looking at and that is the official source that makes it retroactive the fact that they cite the particular notes for ease of reference or or because that editors developed a reputation as being particularly good it seems to me doesn't transform the nature of those notes i will admit to you at the end of the day that the statue at large is going to control over the editor's note the editor's note doesn't have the force of law as such but that can't be the rule it would be wildly over under inclusive to exclude all the things that aren't the only the best authority at the end of the day like i said all the non positive law titles of the us code are like that they are only prima fashion evidence of the law and you have to point back to the statute at large if there's a dispute to say what the law is but if that's the rule like i said the actual statutory text in the official codes of most of the states can now be copyrighted because that's what code revision commissions do they put out these non positive law titles that are prima fashion evidence of the law that they don't have a legal effect they just aren't the controlling interpret it or it's going to be a part of the process of making it and it's not intended to be a complicated doctrine it's pretty easy to look at a work and determine whether it's a legal work or not it's a lot of debate about what the precedents mean here should we interpret them in the direction of the text of the copyright act which clearly says states kim get copyright protection for imitations i mean states can get copyright protection for in addition only insofar as they meet the authorship requirement of the act the authorship requirement was given a gloss in banks banks says it got that lost in wheaton under the marshall court and congress has not seen fit to change it what about how do you accept how is correct we howell and how it's different from what happens here so you know how are all how compiles acting on his own a compilation of the michigan statutes together with his own annotations after he does that michigan passe statute authenticating just the the statutory portion of his work and it says you can treat that statutory portion as though it were published under the authority of the state and that causes justice harlan to read opinion that says even though howell did that work on his own you can cut and paste that text directly out of his book in order to read publish a compilation of the laws because no one can own the was the other stuff which howell had produced st on his own and the state had never authenticated remained howell's property the exact opposite happens with the o c ga lexus produces the energy sion for and at the commission of a state commission c commission exercises supervisory authority over what those  addition said the legislature then requires that those annotations be merged into an official state document and then the whole document is published under the authority of the state of georgia if that's what happened and how i don't think you could copyright to entertain the merger can't make the difference so right now i think the merger does make a difference because that is the legislature deciding that these annotations will be part of the code and then publishing that code under the state's authority it could do the opposite it could say we are only off and if it had the authentication that's in the addendum saying the statutory said text is authentic you can treat it as good for say checking that's fine that's not making the whole volume official the problem is publishing the whole is what the cases according to the ga naturist court would treat that is incorrect that's that seems to be of a color would do was proctor if i'm wrong the court would do its own independent research to determine the weight to be afforded that authority right but it does that with lots of things that we all agree are the law for purposes of this copyright rule just like when agency tells you what that what one of its documents and you're going to construe it you're going to use your own judicial authority to determine what it means b accepting the agency's determination but it still could be a good starting place it wouldn't be the same if it was just something you read on the internet question from a different direction which is the state's micus brief which is a cross section of states makes a very strong argument that this is going to create problems in terms of incentives for creating these annotations in the st place and so the net result of your position if it wins so the states claim is that they'll be fewer available for every state in the union and that includes states that don't copyright anything and include states that make an annotated code available on the internet for free themselves so the incentive to create these private works is not going to be affected at all  are just wrong about that i mean isn't there a cost price issue that's involved or why are the states saying that if there they have nothing to fear i don't think the states have anything to fear what they want is the official version to exist th official versions bear the state's imprimatur they get to supervise what goes in them that's the source of the problem with the copyright of it but the unofficial and the imitations themselves will exist without regard to whether or not this kind of law and i thought that mr johnson told me that they would be more expensive do you dispute that i do dispute that in two respects one is the actual useful versions of these codes are already plenty expensive there's a lot of discussion of the cost for printed volume but online access which is what really most practitioners need to use most people want to use it's much more expensive than the four hundred dollars but even accepting that the price is lower i think that favors us because what's going on there is an lexus isn't going to agree to do the annotation work in exchange for a price cap it what it wants for the price cap is the right to publish it officially that makes sense there's a good description of this in a brief from some former  was well so there's a couple of things in the publication manual that set forth how lexis is supposed to communicate with the state and it requires sending the memos with bracketing around what the new material is xeroxing  the pages on which any l r notes or opinions of the attorney general might be deleted and pointing them out for state approval the publication manual also highlight situations in which the state is likely to tell them what kind of lot of light on a number of areas one of those areas is only applicable to some judges some judges do look at legislative history so for those who do look at legislative history a committee report has significant right now take the same words and imagine that a senator long afterwards came into the court and testified that what we meant would we give that senator wait no or suppose that the committee met after it was passed that's called post an act meant legislative history does that have some weight usually very little and that's because that isn't normally their job that isn't normally part of the law making process thinking of that analogy it seems to me that your case lies somewhere between the official post meant legislative history and overhear the senator walking into the courtroom and just saying that's what i meant now is that fair because i don't think you like me i thinking that way oh i'm comfortable with you writing that way and i think that that s one of the main points i've been trying to make here there is a difference between being worth very little but nonetheless being official authentic state legal resource and being worth nothing because you're not an authentic state legal resource it's not even the senator walking in and testifying right what we need to compare this in to is somebody from the new york times walking in and testifying that this is what people had in mind when they enacted the statute that's not good for anything because it's not a state legal resource it doesn't speak in the in the voice of the state and you can disagree about how much weight to give something that is nonetheless an authentic state legal resource but that's the thing that makes the difference  and that again is the difference between these cases and how and we how when we were allowed to add whatever they wanted presumably a certified copy of the committee report would not be post ho whether i think the point i was trying to make is post hoc or not might affect how much weight you want to give it but the fact that it's a certified committee report is the thing that really makes the difference now  i understand justice ginsburg's question because i do think here's the comments trouble me taking the government and petitioner side the editorial notes trouble but most of the references in the notes are just too traditional decisions and or general research matters if it were limited just said that is that why can't the state just this is what yeah i'll try to give you the best example we could find in one of the state cases that cites a judicial annotation what happened was a lawyer from florida didn't file a response to a motion for summary judgment he looked up the statute in the statute says there's going to be a hearing in thirty days you can file something up until the hearing turns out that there's a rule that says no you have to file a response or else it might be deemed forfeited and the court is deciding whether his failure to file a response is excusable neglect and the court says well if you look at the  this statute it discloses the existence of rule six point three which is not inconsistent with the statute and this is what happens when you have a state legal me and you all like the o c ga that has official  and regular people will find ways to attribute importance to things that are difficult to use for judicial purposes but sometimes will and the reason they do that is because this is a legal work that speaks in the voice of the state and not just the bare work of someone who happens to be a legal editor at best law or something like that that would be a mistake i mean isn't that it would be a mistake to attribute the significance to it i don't know if it would be a mistake or not under under state would be a mistake i mean what they did was attribute significance to the fact that you could find it there in the man who or when they were trying to figure out understood what will is that's wrong we know the state law would say that it would be wrong in construing the meaning of that statu but it isn't necessarily wrong for figuring out what's excusable neglect right whether it's a good lawyer or bad boy ring not to look at the end of the o c ga isn't governed by the statute statute doesn't say section one hundred and eleven doesn't say anything about that know but it would also be pertinent to the question of excusable neglect to look at what you know will the treatises i mean if i'm running an opinion about whether the lawyer should have known then i would say everybody all the treatises about georgia law you know highlight the fact that you've got a final response i think you and i may have different instincts about that i think you'd be more appropriate for a judge to say well look in the official state legal code there are indications that point to the rule that you neglected i think that's more persuasive that's different than saying well if you happen to look at the unofficial codification that westlaw does there's an indication that that rule exists that's the difference thank you counsel three minutes mr johnson i want to start briefly by talking about  doesn't undermine our copyright claim but i think the crucial point on this is that p r row copied the entirety of the o c ga including the judicial decision summaries that i think are clearly copyrightable under w court reporters holding copyright in annotations and given that those were government officials i just don't think that it can make a difference here that the state is the one holding the copyright i think that this case century precedents we're talking about here as holding that states could hold copyright and annotations by state government employees and then congress passed and modern copyright act without in any way overriding that understanding or expanding the government edict doctrine under that understanding we win here and then the final point that i want to touch on is how affirming the decision below would be very publishers so affirming the decision below would blow up those regimes there are at least two additional states that claim copyright in annotations by state government employees and five other states where the commercial publisher holds the copyright in the annotated official code those regimes would probably also fall if the court's decision below was affirmed so i think that statutory tax in precedent compel a decision for georgia here in innovations on government edicts doctrine should come from congress not the courts the court should reverse thank you counsel the case is submitted