Opinion ID: 200368
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Covenant Drawings as Laws

Text: 45 WCP next argues that the covenant drawings, by virtue of their inclusion in the restrictive covenant approved at the Town Meeting, have become laws which are in the public domain and uncopyrightable. 46 It is well-established that judicial decisions and statutes are in the public domain. Bldg. Officials & Code Admin. Int'l, Inc. v. Code Tech., Inc. ( BOCA ), 628 F.2d 730, 733-34 (1st Cir.1980) (reviewing case law); see Banks v. Manchester, 128 U.S. 244, 9 S.Ct. 36, 32 L.Ed. 425 (1888) (judicial opinions are in public domain); Wheaton v. Peters, 33 U.S. 591, 8 Pet. 591, 8 L.Ed. 1055 (1834) (judicial opinions are not copyrightable). This straightforward general rule has proven difficult to apply when the material in question does not fall neatly into the categories of statutes or judicial opinions. A number of appellate courts have reached arguably inconsistent results in such cases. See Veeck v. S. Bldg. Code Cong. Int'l, Inc., 293 F.3d 791, 793 (5th Cir.2002) (en banc) (model code enters public domain when legislatively adopted as law of a jurisdiction), petition for cert. filed, Sept. 4, 2002 (No. 02-355); Practice Mgmt. Info. Corp. v. Am. Med. Ass'n, 121 F.3d 516, 518-20 (9th Cir.1997) (incorporation of classification system for medical procedures in Medicare and Medicaid regulations does not make them uncopyrightable); CCC Info. Servs., Inc. v. Maclean Hunter Mkt. Reports, Inc., 44 F.3d 61, 73-74 (2d Cir.1994) (incorporation of used-car valuations in insurance statutes and regulations does not make them uncopyrightable). 47 The First Circuit faced such a question when it vacated a preliminary injunction against printing state regulations; the regulations incorporated material written by a private party, which was purportedly copyrighted and licensed to the state. BOCA, 628 F.2d at 736. While the court leaned strongly toward a conclusion that the copyright was invalid, it emphasized just as strongly that it declined to reach a definitive conclusion. Id. BOCA did not resolve the issue and this court has not done so since. 48 WCP cites BOCA and urges us to adopt the rule suggested there and apply it to the covenant drawings. The district court, after noting that BOCA was not binding on it, Danielson, 186 F.Supp.2d at 21, adopted the opposite rule. Id. at 23 ([O]therwise copyrightable works ... do not lose copyright protection when they are adopted by government bodies or incorporated by reference into public enactments.). We reject both courses of action. We do not need to consider the broad question we reserved in BOCA, because the facts here do not present it. 49 The restrictive covenant is distinct from the zoning law. The Town Meeting debated and voted on two different measures concerning the site, which had two different effects. The first vote changed the zoning law so that the site was zoned for residential development. We need not consider here whether or not the zoning law is within the public domain, such that any potential intellectual property rights to its content would be overridden, because that law simply sets parameters for the development permissible in different zones, and designates the site as belonging to a particular zone. See generally 18A D.A. Randall & D.E. Franklin, Massachusetts Practice: Municipal Law & Practice, chs. 17-18 (4th ed.1993). 50 The second vote at the Town Meeting approved the restrictive covenant, which is nothing more than an agreement between the Town of Winchester and Farese (and his successors in ownership) concerning the site. A restrictive covenant is [a] private agreement, usu[ally] in a deed or lease, that restricts the use or occupancy of real property. Black's Law Dictionary 371 (7th ed.1999) (emphasis added); see Randall & Franklin, supra, § 570, at 18 (change in overall zoning law does not remove conditions of covenant recorded in deed for particular land). The restrictive covenant in this case displays the hallmarks of a private contract. It notes consideration given to Farese and his co-trustee by the Town and includes notarized signatures of both the trustees and Town officials. It is this document which incorporates, by reference, the seven drawings that Danielson provided to Farese. 51 Farese could just as easily have entered into an agreement with the site's neighbors to limit development; its embodiment in a restrictive covenant, recorded as part of the deed, would not convert such a private contract or easement into a law and thrust it into the public domain. It would not bind the public at large, but only the parties and their successors in interest. The fact that the Town was a party to the restrictive covenant here does not change the analysis. 52 WCP argues that the Planning Board and Town Meeting changed the zoning only because they knew the covenant would be enforced, and that adoption of the two in tandem makes them part of the same legislative scheme. The logical extension of this argument, however, is that any undertakings on which lawmakers rely in passing a statute would become part of the legislative scheme and the public domain. If Farese and the neighbors had entered into a private covenant, and the Planning Board and Town Meeting changed the zoning only because they knew of this contract and it satisfied their concerns about the site, there would be no argument that the covenant was thereby part of the public domain. Similarly, references to the covenant drawings or their features in the Planning Board's decision and speeches at the Town Meeting do not thrust the drawings themselves into the public domain, any more than quoting a poem on the Senate floor would strip the poet's copyright. 53 There are compelling arguments on both sides of the question we reserved in BOCA. They implicate the proper scope of the public domain and the best means to encourage private involvement and expertise in lawmaking. But contracts entered into by government entities do not raise these weighty issues, and we need not resolve the question we left open in BOCA in order to rule on this case. Because the covenant drawings were not incorporated into any generally applicable laws, we affirm the district court's grant of summary judgment against this defense.