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Page Number: 11

8 

GEORGIA v. PUBLIC.RESOURCE.ORG, INC. 

Opinion of the Court 

have free access” to its contents.  Nash, 142 Mass., at 35, 6 
N. E., at 560 (cited by Banks, 128 U. S., at 253–254).  Our 
cases give effect to that principle in the copyright context
through construction of the statutory term “author.”  Id., at 
253.1    Rather  than  attempting  to  catalog  the  materials 
that  constitute  “the  law,”  the  doctrine  bars  the  officials 
responsible for creating the law from being considered the 
“author[s]” of “whatever work they perform in their capac-
ity” as lawmakers.  Ibid. (emphasis added).  Because these 
officials  are  generally  empowered  to  make  and  interpret
law, their “whole work” is deemed part of the “authentic ex-
position and interpretation of the law” and must be “free for
publication to all.”  Ibid. 

If judges, acting as judges, cannot be “authors” because of
their  authority  to  make  and  interpret  the  law,  it  follows
that  legislators,  acting  as  legislators,  cannot  be  either.
Courts  have  thus  long  understood  the  government  edicts
doctrine to apply to legislative materials.  See, e.g., Nash, 
142 Mass., at 35, 6 N. E., at 560 (judicial opinions and stat-
utes stand “on substantially the same footing” for purposes
of the government edicts doctrine); Howell v. Miller, 91 F. 
129, 130–131, 137–138 (CA6 1898) (Harlan, J., Circuit Jus-
tice, joined by then-Circuit Judge Taft) (analyzing statutes
and supplementary materials under Banks and Callaghan
and  concluding  that  the  materials  were  copyrightable  be-
cause they were prepared by a private compiler). 

Moreover, just as the doctrine applies to “whatever work
[judges]  perform  in  their  capacity  as  judges,”  Banks,  128 

—————— 

1 The Copyright Act of 1790 granted copyright protection to “the author
and authors” of qualifying works.  Act of May 31, 1790, §1, 1 Stat. 124. 
This  author  requirement  appears  in  the  current  Copyright  Act  at 
§102(a),  which  limits  protection  to  “original  works  of  authorship.”  17 
U. S. C. §102(a) (emphasis added); see also §201(a) (copyright “vests ini-
tially in the author or authors of the work”).