Page:Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org SCOTUS slip opinion.pdf/16

Rh are particularly reluctant to disrupt precedents interpreting language that Congress has since reenacted. As we explained last Term in Helsinn Healthcare S. A. v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc., 586 U. S. ___ (2019), when Congress “adopt[s] the language used in [an] earlier act,” we presume that Congress “adopted also the construction given by this Court to such language, and made it a part of the enactment.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 7) (quoting Shapiro v. United States, 335 U. S. 1, 16 (1948)). A century of cases have rooted the government edicts doctrine in the word “author,” and Congress has repeatedly reused that term without abrogating the doctrine. The term now carries this settled meaning, and “critics of our ruling can take their objections across the street, [where] Congress can correct any mistake it sees.” Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, 576 U. S. 446, 456 (2015).

Moving on from the text, Georgia invokes what it views as the official position of the Copyright Office, as reflected in the Compendium of U. S. Copyright Office Practices (Compendium). But, as Georgia concedes, the Compendium is a non-binding administrative manual that at most