Opinion ID: 22991
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Due Process/Public Domain Basis

Text: 53 The majority places great emphasis on the district court's conclusion that no probative evidence exists demonstrating that the codes are not publicly available in North Texas towns. This conclusion, even if factually accurate, is not determinative. The question, in my estimation, is not whether Veeck, or any other citizen, actually was prevented from viewing the public law, but whether a private entity that develops a code may maintain private control of that law through a copyright. 54 As the majority correctly observes, not all reproductions of copyrighted work are within the exclusive domain of the copyright owner; some are in the public domain. Sony Corp. v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 433, 104 S. Ct. 774, 784 (1984). It is well settled that judicial opinions and statutes are in the public domain and are not subject to copyright. As the Supreme Court enunciated in Banks, there exist two independent rationales for holding judicial opinions and statutes (and in my opinion, regulations), outside the realm of copyright. While I agree with the majority as to the inapplicability of the first, the public funds rationale, I strenuously disagree with the majority's disregard of the second, the public policy/due process rationale. I also am unable to adopt a meaningful distinction between judicial opinions and statutes, and the regulations that have been promulgated and adopted into law as binding on the citizens of a given community. Today's holding creates a distinction that cannot be sustained. 55 In Banks, the Supreme Court declined to enforce the state reporter's copyright of judicial opinions because [t]he whole work done by judges constitutes the authentic exposition and interpretation of the law, which, binding every citizen, is free for publication to all. Banks, 128 U.S. at 253, 9 S. Ct. at 40; see also BOCA, 628 F.2d at 734-35 (expressing doubt that a private entity that developed a building code was entitled to enforce copyright after the code was enacted into public law on the basis that the public owns the law because it pays the salary of those who draft legislation and the public has the right to know the law to which it is subject). Here, SBCCI seeks to prevent an individual from posting, on an internet web site, a copy 1 of an enacted administrative regulation. The administrative regulation, primarily a building and zoning code, is binding on the public. Sanctions may follow noncompliance. Like a statute, a locality's building regulations are the authentic exposition of the law, which the Banks Court indicated should be free for publication to all. Banks, 128 U.S. at 253, 9 S. Ct. at 40. 56 The First Circuit has indicated its approval of this reasoning in a case presenting facts similar to those we measure today. In BOCA, the plaintiff, Building Officials and Code Administration (BOCA), another code-writing organization, claimed copyright protection for its model building code, which it encouraged public authorities to adopt through a licensing program. See BOCA, 628 F.2d at 732. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts adopted and distributed a building code substantially similar to BOCA's model code, pursuant to a licensing agreement with BOCA. See id. Massachusetts then referred persons seeking to purchase a copy of the code to BOCA. See id. The defendant, Code Technology, Inc. (CT), a private publisher, published, and distributed its own edition of the Massachusetts building code. CT's edition was almost identical to BOCA's edition. See id. Relying on Banks and Wheaton, CT argued that because BOCA's code was adopted by the state as a set of administrative regulations having the force of law, it had lost its copyright protection and thus entered the public domain. See id. at 733. BOCA retorted that the building code differed from judicial opinions and statutes because it was written by a privately funded entity and not by the government using public funds. See id. 57 Although the First Circuit declined to rule on the ultimate merit of the plaintiff's case, in vacating the district court's grant of a preliminary injunction to the copyright holder, it noted that it was far from persuaded that [the plaintiff's] virtual authorship of the Massachusetts building code entitles it to enforce a copyright monopoly over when, where, and how the Massachusetts building code is to be reproduced and made publicly available. Id. at 735. The court reasoned that the public owns the law not just because it pays the salaries of those who write the statutes and judicial opinions, but because [t]he citizens are the authors of the law. Id. at 734. The court also determined that due process guarantees access to the law because it requires notice of legal obligations. See id. It then expressed doubt that due process would allow a private entity to limit access under the copyright law, and to decide for itself when, where, and how the code was to be reproduced and made publicly available. See id. at 735. The court ultimately declined to decide the issue, however, remanding to the district court for further proceedings. See id. at 736. 2 Finding the BOCA analysis compelling, I conclude that a privately developed code is no longer entitled to copyright protection once it enters the public domain. 58 The majority contends that refusal to enforce SBCCI's copyright would result in a departure from the prior decisions of our sister circuits. On close inspection of those cases, it appears to me that no other circuit has addressed a substantively similar situation to the one before us today. The result I favor would not, therefore, be in discord with the decisions of our sister circuits. Practice Management did not reject, outright, the viability of a public domain defense to copyright infringement. In that case, the Ninth Circuit declined to find that the public domain argument supported a publisher's attempt to produce its own copy of a medical coding system developed and copyrighted by the American Medical Association, that had been adopted by the federal Health Care Financing Administration for use in Medicare and Medicaid claim forms. See Practice Management, 121 F.3d at 517. I note that in Practice Management, the party challenging the copyright was a private entity seeking to share in AMA's statutory monopoly. Id. at 519. Had the Ninth Circuit in Practice Management been faced with a situation similar to that presented here -- where a private individual sought to publish gratuitously a public law for use by other citizens, rather than an instance where a private company sought to invalidate a copyright for its own commercial purposes -- it may have decided differently. 59 It is also apparent that the Practice Management court was chary to apply the public domain rationale to defeat a copyright based on the concern that invalidating the AMA's copyright would expose copyrights on a wide range of privately authored model codes, standards, and reference works to invalidation. Id. The Ninth Circuit warned that '[t]o vitiate copyright, in such circumstances, could, without adequate justification, prove destructive to the copyright interest in encouraging creativity,' a matter of particular significance in this context because of 'the increasing trend toward state and federal adoptions of model codes.' Id. at 518 (citing 1 Nimmer § 5.06[C], at 5-92 (1996)). Similarly, in CCC Information Services, the Second Circuit declined to employ the public domain concept to invalidate a copyright of a car valuation system that had been adopted into some states' insurance codes. The CCC Information Services court based its ruling on a public policy-based concern for the ramifications to the copyright holder should the holder be forced to give up its copyright in every instance where the state adopted or referenced its work. See CCC Info. Servs., 44 F.3d at 73-74. Utter disregard of the majority's, as well as the Second and Ninth Circuits', expressed trepidation regarding the viability of standards-writing organizations is not lightly employed. 3 Neither the Second nor the Ninth Circuit, however, was presented with a situation where a private individual sought to publish the law for the sole purpose of sharing it with other citizens. The factual scenario brought before this court leads me to evaluate the public domain rationale in a light different from that utilized by these Circuits. When I balance the protection of original works versus the protection of the public's due process interest, I come down in favor of the public's ability to access the law without private constraints. 60 The extent of SBCCI's control over a regulation binding on the public further fortifies Veeck's assertion that a private entity should not be the sole gatekeeper to the public's laws despite the fact that here, copies were available to individuals at city hall or local libraries. The transformation of SBCCI's privately created work into a public law provides grounds to invalidate SBCCI's copyright to the extent that its code is enacted into law. Following along the lines of the reasoning of the First Circuit in BOCA, I conclude that the due process concern for public access to the law forbids a private entity from exerting sole control over a public law through a copyright. Consequently, once enacted, the portions of SBCCI's codes that become law enter the public domain and are no longer entitled to copyright protection.