The Digital Edge

Recently, the legal publishing company Fastcase received a takedown notice from the parent company of another publishing company, Casemaker, claiming they had exclusive rights to distribute, for commercial use, the Georgia Administrative Rules and Regulations. Fastcase CEO Ed Walters was surprised by this demand, because public law is not copyrightable. As a response, Ed decided to initiate litigation with Casemaker for the rights to the regulations and also to set a countrywide precedent. But why did Casemaker think they had exclusive rights to these Georgia laws in the first place? In this episode of The Digital Edge, Sharon Nelson and Jim Calloway interview Ed Walters about the case, why he thinks keeping public law in the public domain is so important, and the history of law citations, annotations, and publication. Topics include: The verbiage in Casemaker’s takedown notice to Fastcase Contracts with the Secretary of State of Georgia and other states The importance of having a federal court declare that