Ginsburg, J., dissenting
only after lawmaking ends. This sets the OCGA annotations apart from uncopyrightable legislative materials like committee reports, generated before a law’s enactment, and tied tightly to the task of law-formulation.
Second, the OCGA annotations are descriptive rather than prescriptive. Instead of stating the legislature’s perception of what a law conveys, the annotations summarize writings in which others express their views on a given statute. For example, the OCGA contains “case annotations” for “[a]ll decisions of the Supreme Court of Georgia and the Court of Appeals of Georgia and all decisions of the federal courts in cases which arose in Georgia construing any portion of the general statutory law of the state.” Id., at 403. Per the Code Revision Commission’s instructions, each annotation should “accurately reflect the facts, holding, and statutory construction” adopted by the court. Id., at 404. The annotations are neutrally cast; they do not opine on whether the summarized case was correctly decided. See, e.g., OCGA §17–7–50 (2013) (case annotation summarizing facts and holdings of nine cases construing right to grand jury hearing). This characteristic of the annotations distinguishes them from preenactment legislative materials that touch or concern the correct interpretation of the legislature’s work.
Third, and of prime importance, the OCGA annotations are “given for the purpose of convenient reference” by the public, §1–1–7 (2019); they aim to inform the citizenry at large, they do not address, particularly, those seated in legislative chambers.[1] Annotations are thus unlike, for example, surveys, work commissioned by a legislature to aid in
- ↑ Suppose a committee of Georgia’s legislature, to inform the public, instructs a staffer to write a guide titled “The Workways of the Georgia Legislature.” The final text describing how the legislature operates is circulated to members of the legislature and approved by a majority. Contrary to the Court’s decision, I take it that such a work, which entails no lawmaking, would be copyrightable.
