Wheaton v. Peters
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In Wheaton v. Peters, 33 U.S. (8 Pet.) 591, 668 (1834), the unanimous U.S. Supreme Court held that "no reporter has or can have any copyright in the written opinions delivered by this Court ...."
This case arose when one of the Court's official reporters was asserting copyright protection for his annotated compilations of Supreme Court opinions. The Court distinguished between the reporter's individual work and the Justices' opinions. that statutes were never copyrighted. Based on the acknowledged and incontestable analogy with legislative acts, Wheaton held unanimously that "the law" in the form of judicial opinions may not be copyrighted.