Cite as 244 F.Supp.3d 1350 (N.D.Ga. 2017)
§ 107(1). The Supreme Court has explained that “[t]he crux of the profit/nonprofit distinction is not whether the sole motive of the use is monetary gain but whether the user stands to profit from exploitation of the copyrighted material without paying the customary price.” Harper & Row, 471 U.S. at 562, 105 S.Ct. 2218. Courts in several cases have found that educational use of copyrighted works by a nonprofit entity (or an individual associated with such an entity) was commercial even though the secondary user was not selling the items in question; “profit” may take the form of an indirect economic benefit or a non-monetary, professional benefit. See, e.g., Soc’y of Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Inc. v. Gregory, 689 F.3d 29, 61 (1st Cir. 2012) (finding that the first factor weighed against fair use where an archbishop used copyrighted translations of a religious text on his website; although the use was educational, the archbishop profited from the use, in part, in the form of enhanced professional reputation); Worldwide Church of God v. Phila. Church of God, Inc., 227 F.3d 1110, 1118 (9th Cir. 2000) (finding the first factor weighed against fair use where a religious organization distributed copies of a copyrighted book for use in its religious observance; the use was nontransformative, and although the use was educational, the organization profited indirectly by using the work to attract new members who would tithe ten percent of their income); Weissmann v. Freeman, 868 F.2d 1313, 1324 (2d Cir. 1989) (finding that the first factor weighed against fair use where a professor claimed an assistant’s paper as his own work and copied it for use in his class, under the professor’s name, because the professor profited from the use by enhancing his professional reputation and gaining a valuable authorship credit).
In this case, Defendant’s business involves copying and providing what it deems to be “primary legal materials” on the Internet. Defendant is paid in the form of grants and contributions to further its practice of copying and distributing copyrighted materials. Defendant has also published documents that teach others how to take similar actions with respect to government documents. Therefore, the Court finds that Defendant “profits” by the attention, recognition, and contributions it receives in association with its copying and distributing the copyrighted O.C.G.A. annotations, and its use was neither nonprofit nor educational.
- ii. Nature of the copyrighted work
The second factor that the Court must consider is the nature of the copyrighted work. The selection, writing, editing, statutory commentary, and creativity of the annotations requires skill and analysis in reviewing a wealth of materials and drafting original materials to inform and educate users about courts and agencies applying the Georgia code and their citation in third party materials. The creation of the annotations requires a tremendous amount of work from a team of editors. These efforts confirm that the annotations are original works entitled to broad copyright protection.
The fact that the annotations contain fact and not fiction does not end the inquiry for fair use purposes. Indeed, the Eleventh Circuit admonished the district court in Patton for exactly this approach:
Here, the District Court held that “because all of the excerpts are informational and educational in nature and none are fictional, fair use factor two weights in favor of Defendants. Cambridge Univ. Press, 863. F.Supp.2d at
