Page:International Code Council v. UpCodes (2020).pdf/40

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the district court to consider BOCA’s arguments in full, it nevertheless had “serious doubts as to BOCA’s ability to prevail.” See 628 F.2d at 736. And though the Veeck court disclaimed that public access to the law should hinge on factual determinations, it nevertheless weighed SBCCI’s incentives-focused arguments against the free access notions that the Circuit Court had observed. In particular, the Veeck court noted that organizations like SBCCI had survived for over 60 years without any enforcement of their copyright in analogous circumstances, and it added that the technical complexities of model codes suggested there would be robust demand for up-to-date codes regardless of the limited circumstances where a model code’s text entered the public domain. See 293 F.3d at 805–06. Indeed, the court noted that “it is difficult to imagine an area of creative endeavor in which the copyright incentive is needed less. Trade organizations have powerful reasons stemming from industry standardization, quality control, and self-regulation to produce these model codes; it is unlikely that, without copyright, they will cease producing them.” Id. at 806.

The BOCA and Veeck courts effectively indicated that “the public need[ed] notice of [the adopted codes] to have

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