AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATION, INC. et al v. PUBLIC.RESOURCE.ORG, INC.

Filing 138

LARGE ADDITIONAL ATTACHMENT(S) by PUBLIC.RESOURCE.ORG, INC. 136 Second MOTION for Summary Judgment filed by PUBLIC.RESOURCE.ORG, INC., 137 SEALED MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE DOCUMENT UNDER SEAL filed by PUBLIC.RESOURCE.ORG, INC. (This document is SEALED and only available to authorized persons.) filed by PUBLIC.RESOURCE.ORG, INC.. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit 1, # 2 Exhibit 2, # 3 Exhibit 3, # 4 Exhibit 4, # 5 Exhibit 5, # 6 Exhibit 6, # 7 Errata 7, # 8 Exhibit 8, # 9 Exhibit 9, # 10 Exhibit 10, # 11 Exhibit 11, # 12 Exhibit 12, # 13 Exhibit 13, # 14 Exhibit 14, # 15 Exhibit 15, # 16 Exhibit 16, # 17 Exhibit 17, # 18 Exhibit 18, # 19 Exhibit 19, # 20 Exhibit 20, # 21 Exhibit 21, # 22 Exhibit 22, # 23 Exhibit 23, # 24 Exhibit 24, # 25 Exhibit 25, # 26 Exhibit 26, # 27 Exhibit 27, # 28 Exhibit 28, # 29 Exhibit 29, # 30 Exhibit 30, # 31 Exhibit 31, # 32 Exhibit 32, # 33 Exhibit 33, # 34 Exhibit 34, # 35 Exhibit 35, # 36 Exhibit 36, # 37 Exhibit 37, # 38 Exhibit 38 FILED UNDER SEAL, # 39 Exhibit 39 FILED UNDER SEAL, # 40 Exhibit 40, # 41 Exhibit 41, # 42 Exhibit 42, # 43 Exhibit 43, # 44 Exhibit 44, # 45 Exhibit 45, # 46 Exhibit 46, # 47 Exhibit 47, # 48 Exhibit 48, # 49 Exhibit 49 FILED UNDER SEAL, # 50 Exhibit 50 FILED UNDER SEAL, # 51 Exhibit 51 FILED UNDER SEAL, # 52 Exhibit 52 FILED UNDER SEAL, # 53 Exhibit 53 FILED UNDER SEAL, # 54 Exhibit 54 FILED UNDER SEAL, # 55 Exhibit 55 FILED UNDER SEAL, # 56 Exhibit 56, # 57 Exhibit 57, # 58 Exhibit 58 FILED UNDER SEAL, # 59 Exhibit 59 FILED UNDER SEAL, # 60 Exhibit 60 FILED UNDER SEAL, # 61 Exhibit 61 FILED UNDER SEAL, # 62 Exhibit 62, # 63 Exhibit 63, # 64 Exhibit 64, # 65 Exhibit 65, # 66 Exhibit 66, # 67 Exhibit 67, # 68 Exhibit 68, # 69 Exhibit 69 FILED UNDER SEAL)(Bridges, Andrew)

EXHIBIT 24

Opinion | The Law©? - The New York Times

1 of 3

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/25/opinion/copyright-law.html

The Law©?
No one owns the law, and no one should be able to copyright
it.
By The Editorial Board
The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is
separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.

June 25, 2019

No one owns the law, because the law belongs to everyone. It’s a principle that
seems so obvious that most people wouldn’t give it a second thought. But that’s
what is at issue in Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, a case about whether the
State of Georgia can assert copyright in its annotated state code. This week, the
Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in its next term.
Americans deserve free and easy access to public records of all kinds, including
court documents. But access to the law is the most important of all: Democracy
depends on it. Keeping the law free of copyright is the first step.
Yet the law is in disarray on the topic. The last time the Supreme Court ruled on
the issue was in 1888, and it only addressed opinions written by judges. In the
last century, a number of lower courts issued lofty proclamations on how the law
belongs to the people and the people alone. Meanwhile, copyright laws passed in
1909 and 1976 explicitly excluded any “work of the United States government.”
But that exclusion applies only to the federal government.
So when the nonprofit organization Public.Resource.Org purchased, scanned and
uploaded all 186 volumes of the annotated Georgia state code to its website, the
state sued to take it down. The code was already available free online through
the state’s partnership with LexisNexis. As part of the deal, Georgia gave

7/17/19, 3:06 PM

Opinion | The Law©? - The New York Times

2 of 3

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/25/opinion/copyright-law.html

LexisNexis exclusive rights to official “annotations” that elaborate on the law
but aren’t legally binding. LexisNexis allowed users to read the law free and it
sold the annotated code for $404 per copy.
Public.Resource.Org is no stranger to litigation. For years, it has been embroiled
in lawsuits over its publication of fire and electrical safety standards, air duct
leakage standards, nonprofit tax returns and European Union baby pacifier
regulations. The founder of Public.Resource.Org was once labeled a “rogue
archivist.” But if publishing building safety standards online is an act of roguery,
it is time for the courts to take a hard look at what copyright is for.
Much of the litigation against Public.Resource.Org falls into an ever-expanding
gray zone of the law, created by government outsourcing bits and pieces of its
regulatory function to the private sector. Regulations for everything from
student loan eligibility to food additives can use standards written by trade
groups.
Courts have issued conflicting opinions on this premium tier of the law. In the
Georgia case, an appeals court ruled that the annotations were “sufficiently lawlike,” partly because LexisNexis had created the annotations at the direction of
the state. As a consequence, “the people are the ultimate authors of the
annotations.”
If the law is confused, it is in part thanks to the Supreme Court, which handed
down two rulings on the subject in 1888. One stated that the law is in the public
domain, and the other said that compiling the law with a table of contents,
summaries and an index could be copyrightable. It’s this latter case that the
State of Georgia relies on.
The modern-day outsourcing of regulations to the private sector makes this
issue all the more important to take up anew. If the law belongs to anyone, it
belongs to the people. After a hundred or so years of confusion, the Supreme
Court now has the chance to affirm this principle of self-governance.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think

7/17/19, 3:06 PM

Opinion | The Law©? - The New York Times

3 of 3

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/25/opinion/copyright-law.html

about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [e-mail].
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
A version of this article appears in print on June 26, 2019, Section A, Page 30 of the New York edition with the headline: The Law©?

7/17/19, 3:06 PM