The United States Supreme Court has ruled that annotations in Georgia's official statutes are not protected by copyright.
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/georgia-loses-legal-code-copy…
In the December, 2019, oral argument in Georgia v Public.Resource.Org., Inc., Justice Neil Gorsuch asked, "Why would we allow the official law to be hidden behind a paywall?"
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/12/justices-debate-allowing-st…
Summarizing it's holding, the Court reasoned:
"The Copyright Act grants potent, decades-long monopoly protection for "
'original works of authorship.' 17 U. S. C. §102(a). The question in this case is whether that protection extends to the annotations contained in Georgia's official annotated code.
"We hold that it does not. Over a century ago, we recognized a limitation on copyright protection for certain government work product, rooted in the Copyright Act's 'authorship' requirement. Under what has been dubbed the government edicts doctrine, 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.
"We have previously applied that doctrine to hold that non-binding, explanatory legal materials are not copyrightable when created by judges who possess the authority to make and interpret the law. See Banks v. Manchester, 128 U. S. 244 (1888). We now recognize that the same logic applies to non-binding, explanatory legal materials created by a legislative body vested with the authority to make law. Because Georgia's annotations are authored by an arm of the legislature in the course of its legislative duties, the government edicts doctrine puts them outside the reach of copyright protection."
This puts an end, it would seem, to any claim of copyright protection for Kentucky's revised statutes.
https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/statute.aspx?id=491
