The Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc, reversed a district court ruling concerning the copyright of model building codes. The Southern Building Code Congress International (SBCCI), an organization that develops model building codes, sued Veeck for copyright infringement after he had posted the model codes on his non-profit website. A number of Texas municipalities had adopted the SBCCI model codes. Veeck ordered the model code directly from SBCCI and posted it on his non-profit website identifying it as the building code of the various municipalities, rather than as a SBCCI model code. The court held that as law, the model codes enter the public domain and are not subject to the copyright holder's exclusive prerogatives. As model codes, however, the court concluded that the organization's works retain their protected status.
5th Circuit En Banc Opinion http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=5th&navby=case&no=9940632cv2&exact=1
Keywords: copyright
| 