Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1150_new_d18e.pdf
Page Number: 7.0

4 

GEORGIA v. PUBLIC.RESOURCE.ORG, INC. 

Opinion of the Court 

version of the statutory text available to the public online 
for free.  A hard copy of the complete OCGA currently re-
tails for $412.00. 

B 
Public.Resource.Org  (PRO)  is  a  nonprofit  organization
that aims to facilitate public access to government records 
and legal materials.  Without permission, PRO posted a dig-
ital version of the OCGA on various websites, where it could 
be  downloaded  by  the  public  without  charge.    PRO  also 
distributed  copies  of  the  OCGA  to  various  organizations 
and Georgia officials.

In  response,  the  Commission  sent  PRO  several  cease-
and-desist letters asserting that PRO’s actions constituted
unlawful  copyright  infringement.    When  PRO  refused  to 
halt  its  distribution  activities,  the  Commission  sued  PRO 
on behalf of the Georgia Legislature and the State of Geor-
gia for copyright infringement.  The Commission limited its 
assertion of copyright to the annotations described above; it 
did not claim copyright in the statutory text or numbering.
PRO counterclaimed, seeking a declaratory judgment that
the  entire  OCGA,  including  the  annotations,  fell  in  the 
public domain.

The  District  Court  sided  with  the  Commission.    The 
Court acknowledged that the annotations in the OCGA pre-
sented “an unusual case because most official codes are not 
annotated and most annotated codes are not official.”  Code 
Revision Comm’n v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc., 244 F. Supp. 
3d 1350, 1356 (ND Ga. 2017).  But, ultimately, the Court
concluded that the annotations were eligible for copyright
protection  because  they  were  “not  enacted  into  law”  and
lacked “the force of law.”  Ibid.  In light of that conclusion, 
the Court granted partial summary judgment to the Com-
mission and entered a permanent injunction requiring PRO 
to cease its distribution activities and to remove the digital
copies of the OCGA from the internet.