I would be willing to bet the State Bar Association of Georgia is the real driving force behind this.
The greatest thing lawyers have is their knowledge of the law over that of the layman. They have their own legal data bases and software tools that allow them to search statutes, etc. for applicability to any number of inputs.
In the case here, a free public SEARCHABLE database is competition to the legal profession.
IOW, you can bet your ass lawyers are behind this.
The states appear to have cozy relationships with LexisNexis and WestLaw.
Are these people insane?? Who elects these nitwits?
How can a law be copyrighted? Doesn’t copyright only protect creative work?
The government has found it very profitable to charge people for filing fees for documents then charge the public later per page to obtain copies of them. I bet the real issue is they wanted to charge people to access it which is complete BS when you figure the public already pays taxes to pay government employees and the lawyers who drafted the code in the first place. The problem is the government is a fat pig who can never be fed enough.
Copyright the language in their Law Books? C’mon now children.
Cockroaches don't like it when you turn the lights on for everyone to see them.
Government should stick to fighting real crime, not made-up crime.
I don’t have any background on this situation, but as a general rule public laws are in the public domain and therefore not copyright protected.
However, annotations added to them might be copyrighted. Some states have official codes—not copyrighted. A private publisher can add annotations to the official code and copyright the annotations.
Jury nullification.
Totally ridiculous.
Laws are secret now??
Many states have their statutes available online so what is the problem with Georgia?