Copywriting the law

[Weisberg <weisberg@texoma.net>]

I represent Peter Veeck in his appeal of the district court
summary judgment that private party copyrights of the law are
enforceable.  The various court documents can be found at
<http://regionalweb.texoma.net/cr>.

The case involves the Standard Building Codes issued by the
Southern Building Code Congress Intl (SBCCI) which were adopted by
two small towns north of Dallas.  Mr. Veeck posts information
about the area on his non-commercial website, including local
ordinances.  SBCCI has a monopoly on the sale of such codes and
charges between $58 and $72/code--Building, Pumbing, Electrical,
Fire, etc).  The case arose because he posted the building codes
of Anna and Savoy, Texas (i.e. the adopted SBCCI model) on his
site and refused to take them down when threatened with suit.
This is one of those rare disputes which resulted purely from
principle and not economics.

I will be filing his 5th Circuit brief in Veeck v. SBCCI on
September 7th.
Amicus briefs are should be filed within one week of any brief
they support (hopefully, Mr. Veeck's!), though such deadline can
be extended by the court.
Obviously, Mr. Veeck would appreciate any kind of support he can
get.

As you probably know, the American Assn. of Law Librarians (AALL)
has campaigned for an amendment to the proposed Database
Protection Act to exempt materials such as these (laws,
regulations, etc.).  I don't know how that amendment would affect
an adverse ruling under the general copyright law in the Veeck
case.

Sincerely,

Eric Weisberg
903.463.3364 office
             3308 home
      814.7602 cellular