Page:Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org SCOTUS slip opinion.pdf/16

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Cite as: 590 U. S. ____ (2020)

13

Opinion of the Court

are particularly reluctant to disrupt precedents interpreting language that Congress has since reenacted. As we explained last Term in Helsinn Healthcare S. A. v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc., 586 U. S. ___ (2019), when Congress “adopt[s] the language used in [an] earlier act,” we presume that Congress “adopted also the construction given by this Court to such language, and made it a part of the enactment.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 7) (quoting Shapiro v. United States, 335 U. S. 1, 16 (1948)). A century of cases have rooted the government edicts doctrine in the word “author,” and Congress has repeatedly reused that term without abrogating the doctrine. The term now carries this settled meaning, and “critics of our ruling can take their objections across the street, [where] Congress can correct any mistake it sees.” Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, 576 U. S. 446, 456 (2015).^[1]

Moving on from the text, Georgia invokes what it views as the official position of the Copyright Office, as reflected in the Compendium of U. S. Copyright Office Practices (Compendium). But, as Georgia concedes, the Compendium is a non-binding administrative manual that at most

↑ Justice Thomas disputes the applicability of the Helsinn Healthcare presumption because States have asserted copyright in statutory annotations over the years notwithstanding our government edicts precedents. Post, at 11–12. In Justice Thomas’s view, those assertions prove that our precedents could not have provided clear enough guidance for Congress to incorporate. But that inference from state behavior proves too much. The same study cited by Justice Thomas to support a practice of claiming copyright in non-binding annotations also reports that “many states claim copyright interest in their primary law materials,” including statutes and regulations. Dmitrieva, State Ownership of Copyrights in Primary Law Materials, 23 Hastings Com. & Entertainment L. J. 81, 109 (2000) (emphasis added). Justice Thomas concedes that such assertions are plainly foreclosed by our government edicts precedents. Post, at 4. That interested parties have pursued ambitious readings of our precedents does not mean those precedents are incapable of providing meaningful guidance to us or to Congress.

[1] Justice Thomas disputes the applicability of the Helsinn Healthcare presumption because States have asserted copyright in statutory annotations over the years notwithstanding our government edicts precedents. Post, at 11–12. In Justice Thomas’s view, those assertions prove that our precedents could not have provided clear enough guidance for Congress to incorporate. But that inference from state behavior proves too much. The same study cited by Justice Thomas to support a practice of claiming copyright in non-binding annotations also reports that “many states claim copyright interest in their primary law materials,” including statutes and regulations. Dmitrieva, State Ownership of Copyrights in Primary Law Materials, 23 Hastings Com. & Entertainment L. J. 81, 109 (2000) (emphasis added). Justice Thomas concedes that such assertions are plainly foreclosed by our government edicts precedents. Post, at 4. That interested parties have pursued ambitious readings of our precedents does not mean those precedents are incapable of providing meaningful guidance to us or to Congress.

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