Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1150_new_d18e.pdf
Page Number: 14

Cite as:  590 U. S. ____ (2020) 

11 

Opinion of the Court 

notations is under Georgia law an act of “legislative author-
ity,” Harrison Co., 244 Ga., at 330, 260 S. E. 2d, at 34, and 
the annotations provide commentary and resources that the 
legislature has deemed relevant to understanding its laws.
Georgia and JUSTICE GINSBURG  emphasize that the anno-
tations do not purport to provide authoritative explanations
of the law and largely summarize other materials, such as 
judicial decisions and law review articles.  See post, at 3–4 
(dissenting opinion).  But that does not take them outside 
the exercise of legislative duty by the Commission and leg-
islature.  Just as we have held that the “statement of the 
case and the syllabus or head note” prepared by judges fall 
within the “work they perform in their capacity as judges,” 
Banks,  128  U. S.,  at  253,  so  too  annotations  published  by 
legislators alongside the statutory text fall within the work 
legislators perform in their capacity as legislators. 

In light of the Commission’s role as an adjunct to the leg-
islature  and  the  fact  that  the  Commission  authors  the 
annotations in the course of its legislative responsibilities,
the  annotations  in  Georgia’s  Official  Code  fall  within  the
government edicts doctrine and are not copyrightable. 

III 
Georgia resists this conclusion on several grounds.  At the 
outset,  Georgia  advances  two  arguments  for  why,  in  its
view,  excluding  the  OCGA  annotations  from  copyright
protection conflicts with the text of the Copyright Act.  Both 
are unavailing.

First, Georgia notes that §101 of the Act specifically lists
“annotations”  among  the  kinds  of  works  eligible  for  copy-
right protection.  But that provision refers only to “annota-
tions  . . .  which  . . .  represent  an  original  work  of  author-
ship.”  17 U. S. C.  §101 (emphasis added).  The whole point 
of the government edicts doctrine is that judges and legis-
lators cannot serve as authors when they produce works in
their official capacity.  While the reference to “annotations”