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 capacity” 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 exposition 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 statutes 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 Justice, joined by then-Circuit Judge Taft) (analyzing statutes and supplementary materials under Banks and Callaghan and concluding that the materials were copyrightable because 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
- ↑ 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 initially in the author or authors of the work”).
