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Page Number: 5.0

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GEORGIA v. PUBLIC.RESOURCE.ORG, INC. 

Opinion of the Court 

a  legislative  body  vested  with  the  authority  to  make  law. 
Because  Georgia’s  annotations  are  authored  by  an  arm
of the legislature in the course of its legislative duties, the
government edicts doctrine puts them outside the reach of
copyright protection. 

I 
A 

The State of Georgia has one official code—the “Official 
Code  of  Georgia  Annotated,”  or  OCGA.    The  first  page  of 
each volume of the OCGA boasts the State’s official seal and 
announces to readers that it is “Published Under Authority 
of the State.” 

The  OCGA  includes  the  text  of  every  Georgia  statute
currently  in  force,  as  well  as  various  non-binding  supple-
mentary materials.  At issue in this case is a set of annota-
tions  that  appear  beneath  each  statutory  provision.    The 
annotations  generally  include  summaries  of  judicial  deci-
sions  applying  a  given  provision, summaries of  any  perti-
nent opinions of the state attorney general, and a list of re-
lated  law  review  articles  and  similar  reference  materials. 
In  addition,  the  annotations  often  include  editor’s  notes 
that provide information about the origins of the statutory 
text, such as whether it derives from a particular judicial
decision or resembles an older provision that has been con-
strued by Georgia courts.  See, e.g., OCGA §§51–1–1, 53–4– 
2 (2019).

The OCGA is assembled by a state entity called the Code
Revision  Commission.    In  1977,  the  Georgia  Legislature
established the Commission to recodify Georgia law for the 
first time in decades.  The Commission was (and remains)
tasked with consolidating disparate bills into a single Code 
for reenactment by the legislature and contracting with a 
third party to produce the annotations.  A majority of the
Commission’s 15 members must be members of the Georgia