Page:International Code Council v. UpCodes (2020).pdf/24

, 140 S.Ct. 1498 (2020) (“ PRO ”). There, the Court considered whether annotations in the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, which was the authoritative version of Georgia’s statutes under Georgia law, were in the public domain along with the statutes themselves. LexisNexis drafted the annotations pursuant to a work-for-hire agreement with a Georgia state commission, such that Georgia was considered the “author” of those annotations for copyright purposes. See id. at 1505. When the nonprofit organization PRO copied the annotated code, Georgia filed suit and argued that the annotations were not in the public domain because they did not carry the “force of law,” unlike the statutes. See id. The district court agreed with Georgia, but the Eleventh Circuit reversed, using a three-part test that considered whether the annotations were constructively authored by citizens. See id. at 1505–06.

The Supreme Court affirmed, but it announced a different rule: government officials empowered to speak with the force of law cannot claim copyright in works created in the course of their official duties, whether or