Month: April 2020

Carl Malamud, founder of Public.Resource.Org. (credit: Kirk Walter / Flickr)

A narrowly divided US Supreme Court on Monday upheld the right to freely share the official law code of Georgia. The state claimed to own the copyright for the Official Code of Georgia, Annotated, and sued a nonprofit called Public.Resource.Org for publishing it online. Monday's ruling is not only a victory for the open-government group, it's an important precedent that will help secure the right to publish other legally significant public documents.

"Officials empowered to speak with the force of law cannot be the authors of—and therefore cannot copyright—the works they create in the course of their official duties," wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in an opinion that was joined by four other justices on the nine-member court.

Everyone involved in the case agreed that the text of state statutes could not be copyrighted. But the state of Georgia argued that it could copyright annotations that are distributed with the official code. These annotations provide supplemental information about the law, including summaries of judicial opinions, information about legislative history, and citations to relevant law review articles. The annotations are produced by a division of legal publishing giant LexisNexis under a work-for-hire contract with the state.

Enlarge / A Comcast van in Sunnyvale, California, in November 2018. (credit: Getty Images | Andrei Stanescu)

After promising 60 days without data caps and overage fees for all customers, Comcast has decided to extend the data-cap waiver until at least June 30.

Comcast announced the data-cap waiver on March 13, saying the waiver would last until May 13 to help customers deal with the pandemic. Today, Comcast said it will extend the data-cap waiver and other pandemic-related changes "through June 30 to help ensure students can finish out the school year from home and remain connected to the Internet during the COVID-19 crisis."

Also extended to June 30 is Comcast's promise not to disconnect Internet, mobile, or home phone service and to waive late fees if customers "contact us and let us know that they can't pay their bills during this period."