Georgia sues legal rebel for posting state’s copyrighted law online

While they aren't even suing over a music recording or motion picture, the Georgia's copyright complaint can be seen as equally nitpicky. Georgia claims that a legal rebel, Public.Resource.org, is publishing and making it easy for others to copy the physical text and accompanying annotations of Georgia's state law -- the Official Code of Georgia Annotated.

"We had a similar showdown with Oregon but no court case," said Carl Malamud, a Californian and the man behind the site. "They did the civilized thing and held hearings and then decided that the law belongs to the people." The state's Code Revision Commission maintains that PublicResource.org is not entitled to reproduce the annotated version of Georgia’s code. Georgia is essentially saying it is not OK to copy and distribute the texts of the state's laws if those texts are accompanied with the state-owned summaries of what the law actually means. Keep in mind, it remains totally kosher to distribute and copy the actual text of the state's laws. Again, it depends on where you line up on the debate.