The Supreme Court just heard the State of Georgia's argument for copyrighting the law and charging for access to it

For years, rogue archivist Carl Malamud (previously) has been scanning and posting proprietary elements of the law, such as standard annotations or building and safety codes developed by outside parties and then incorporated into legislation, on the theory that if you are expected to follow the law, you must be able to read, write and share that law.

Along the way, Malamud has attracted numerous lawsuits from standards development organizations, publishers, national governments and state governments. Notably, the State of Georgia sued Malamud over his free publication of "The Official Code of Georgia Annotated," which is, as the name implies, the state's official version of its own laws. Malamud won on appeal and when the case headed to the Supreme Court, legal scholars, lawyers and law students lined up to sign an amicus brief on his behalf.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Malamud's case. Gorsuch was skeptical of Georgia's claim that paywalling the law was necessary or proportionate, and the justices overall were not overly generous to Georgia's arguments that Lexisnexis's unpaywalled, unannotated version of the law (which is not the official version and also warns readers that it might be out of date) can substitute for the state's official laws.

The annotations in the annotated code summarize relevant judgments that are necessary to interpret the laws. Georgia does not publish an official, un-annotated version of its laws.

However, it's not a slam dunk. Breyer, Sottomayor and Kavanaugh were all tough on Malamud's lawyer.

The court is expected to rule by late June. Read the rest