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Page Number: 27

6 

GEORGIA v. PUBLIC.RESOURCE.ORG, INC. 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

and apply rules of law that, in turn, represent the imple-
mentation of the will of the people.  Unlike other copyright-
able works of authorship, judicial opinions have binding le-
gal  effect,  and  they  are  produced  and  issued  at  public 
expense.  Moreover, copyright law understands an author
to be one whose work will be encouraged by the grant of an
exclusive right.  See Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 
579 U. S. ___, ___ (2016) (slip op., at 6).  But judges, when
acting in an official capacity, do not fit that description.  The 
Court  in  Banks  may  have  had  these  differences  in  mind
when it concluded that a judge fell outside the scope of the 
term “author.”  128 U. S., at 253. 

History may also suggest a narrower meaning of “author” 
in the copyright context.  In England, at least as far back as
1666, courts and commentators  agreed “that the property 
of all law books is in the king, because he pays the judges 
who pronounce the law.”  G. Curtis, Law of Copyright 130
(1847); see also Banks & Bros. v. West Publishing Co., 27 F. 
50, 57 (CC Minn. 1886) (citing English cases and treatises 
and concluding that “English courts generally sustain the
crown’s  proprietary  rights  in  judicial  opinions”).    Black-
stone described this as a “prerogative copyrigh[t],” explain-
ing  that  “[t]he  king,  as  the  executive  magistrate,  has  the
right of promulging to the people all acts of state and gov-
ernment.  This gives him the exclusive privilege of printing,
at his own press, or that of his grantees, all acts of parlia-
ment,  proclamations,  and  orders  of  council.”    2  W.  Black-
stone,  Commentaries  on  the  Laws  of  England  410  (1766) 
(emphasis  deleted);  see  also  Wheaton,  8  Pet.,  at  659–660. 
This history helps to explain the dearth of cases permitting
individuals  to  obtain  copyrights  in  judicial  opinions.  But 
under  the  Constitution,  sovereignty  lies  with  the  people, 
not a king.  See The Federalist No. 22, p. 152 (C. Rossiter 
ed. 1961); id., No. 39, at 241.  The English historical prac-
tice, when superimposed on the Constitution’s recognition 
that sovereignty resides in the people, helps to explain the