Georgia’s four-year fight to stop a California public interest group from making the state’s annotated legal code available for free online drew pointed questions from the U.S. Supreme Court Monday.

Carl Malamud (Courtesy photo) Carl Malamud (Courtesy photo)

Georgia contends the Official Code of Georgia Annotated is copyrighted and that it has given a LexisNexis publisher the exclusive rights to publish and sell it. The state contends that Public.Resource.Org violated that copyright when organization founder Carl Malamud bought the 186-volume and all of its supplements and made it available for free online. The state sued in 2015, prompting a countersuit by Public.Resource.Org.