## Facts

- Southern Building Code Congress International, Inc. (SBCCI) drafted and sold model building codes, including the 1994 Standard Building Code, and asserted copyright in the text.
- The Texas towns of Anna and Savoy adopted SBCCI’s model code as their municipal building code by ordinance.
- Peter Veeck operated a noncommercial website and sought copies of the enacted building codes from the towns but did not obtain them through the municipalities.
- Veeck purchased electronic copies of SBCCI’s code, which contained copyright notices and anti-copying warnings.
- Veeck posted the code text on his website as the towns’ building codes, without attributing authorship to SBCCI.
- SBCCI sent a cease-and-desist letter alleging copyright infringement.
- Veeck sought a declaratory judgment of noninfringement and/or invalidity of copyright as to the enacted code; SBCCI counterclaimed for infringement.
- The district court granted summary judgment and an injunction to SBCCI; a Fifth Circuit panel affirmed; the Fifth Circuit reheard the case en banc.

## Issues

1. Whether a private organization may enforce copyright in model code text after a municipality adopts that text as binding law.
2. Whether posting the text of enacted municipal building codes infringes the private drafter’s copyright when the enacted text and the model text are identical in substance.

## Decision

- The en banc Fifth Circuit reversed the district court and rendered judgment for Veeck on SBCCI’s copyright claims.
- The court held that, to the extent SBCCI’s model code text was adopted as municipal law, it became “the law” and entered the public domain.
- SBCCI could not use copyright to restrict copying and republication of the enacted code as law.
- SBCCI’s model codes remained copyrightable and enforceable as private works before enactment and as to non-enacted uses.

## Legal Principles

- The text of binding “law” (including statutes and regulatory codes) is not copyrightable and is free for public copying and distribution.
- The government-edicts principle applies to the text that has legal force, regardless of whether government employees or private entities originally drafted the text.
- When a municipality adopts a model code such that the operative legal text is the same as the model’s text, the enacted version is treated as the law for public-domain purposes.
- Public access to the law requires that citizens be able to read, copy, and share the law without paying a private rightsholder for permission.
- Economic incentives for private code development do not justify private control over the public’s ability to reproduce binding legal obligations.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit held that once a municipality adopts a privately drafted model building code as binding law, the enacted text is in the public domain and may be freely posted and redistributed; copyright remains available only for the code as a private model work before enactment and for non-enacted uses.


Veeck v. S. Bldg. Code Cong. Int'l, Inc., 293 F.3d 791 (5th Cir. 2002) (en banc)