Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1150_new_d18e.pdf
Page Number: 33

12 

GEORGIA v. PUBLIC.RESOURCE.ORG, INC. 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

“our precedents answer the question” so clearly, ante, at 14, 
one wonders why the Eleventh Circuit reached its conclu-
sion in such a roundabout fashion.  Rather than following 
the majority’s “straightforward” path, ante, at 5, the Elev-
enth Circuit looked to the “zone of indeterminacy at the 
frontier  between  edicts  that  carry  the  force  of  law  and 
those  that  do  not”  to  determine  whether  the  annotations 
were  “sufficiently  law-like”  to  be  “constructively  authored
by  the  People.”    Code  Revision  Comm’n  v.  Public.Re-
source.Org, Inc., 906 F. 3d 1229, 1233, 1242, 1243 (2018).
The District Court likewise does not appear to have viewed 
the question as well settled.  In a cursory analysis, it deter-
mined  that  the  annotations  were  copyrightable  based  on 
Callaghan.  Code Revision Comm’n v. Public.Resource.Org, 
Inc., 244 F. Supp. 3d 1350, 1356 (ND Ga. 2017).  It is risible 
to  presume  that  Congress  had  knowledge  of  and  incorpo-
rated a “settled” meaning that eluded a multitude of States
and Territories, as well as at least four Article III judges. 
Ante, at 13.  Cf. Rimini Street, Inc. v. Oracle USA, Inc., 586 
U. S. ___, ___–___ (2019) (slip op., at 9–10). 

This  presumption  of  congressional  knowledge  also  pro-
vides the basis for the majority’s conclusion that the anno-
tations are not “original works of authorship.”  See ante, at 
11–12  (discussing  §101).    Stripped  of  the  fiction  that  this
Court’s 19th-century precedents clearly demonstrated that
“authorship” encompassed all works performed as part of a
legislator’s duties, the majority’s textual argument fails. 

—————— 
I  do  not  claim  that  this  evidence  demonstrates  that  the  States  neces-
sarily  interpreted  the  government  edicts  doctrine  correctly.    I  merely
point out that these divergent practices seriously undercut the majority’s 
claim that its interpretation of “authorship” was well settled and univer-
sally understood.  On this score, the majority has no answer but to insin-
uate  that  the  lawmakers  of  over  half  the  Nation’s  jurisdictions  disre-
garded federal law and the Constitution to pursue their own agendas in 
the face of supposedly clear precedent.