Circuit eschewed the term “due process” given the formal doctrines that have developed around that phrase, the court’s reasoning detailed in the preceding footnote essentially tracks that of BOCA and remains consistent with the “animating principle” that no one can own or restrict free access to the law.
The Fifth Circuit concluded that “when Veeck copied only ‘the law’ of Anna and Savoy, Texas, which he obtained from SBCCI’s publication, and when he reprinted only ‘the law’ of those municipalities, he did not infringe SBCCI’s copyrights in its model building codes.” Id. at 800. However, the court noted its holding “might well be the opposite, if Veeck had copied the model codes as model codes, or if he had indiscriminately mingled those portions of ‘the law’ of Anna and Savoy adopted by their town councils with other parts of the model codes not so adopted.” Id. at 800 n.14.
BOCA and Veeck are almost directly on point to the controversy at issue here. They strongly suggest that ICC cannot limit accurate posting of the I-Codes as Adopted. However, the cases also suggest that the law of the public domain will not protect the posting of the I-Codes as I-
by this logic, has degenerated into availability as long as SBCCI chooses not to file suit.” Veeck, 293 F.3d at 799–800.
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