Oppose the Pro Codes Act

There have been 2 Supreme Court rulings and 7 rulings across 5 circuit courts cases reaffirming you can't own the law.

Supreme Court

Georgia v Public.Resource.Org (2020)[ref]:

"no one can own the law" — Justice Roberts

"beyond doubt, state laws are not copyrightable" — Justice Ginsburg

"statutes and regulations cannot be copyrighted" — Justice Thomas

Banks v Manchester (1888)[ref]:

"the law, which, binding every citizen, is free for publication to all"

DC Circuit

ASTM v Public.Resource.Org (2018)[ref]:

"The plaintiffs here claim a copyright over binding legal texts, which would enable them to prevent anyone from gaining access to that law or copying it for the public... As a matter of common-sense, this cannot be right: access to the law cannot be conditioned on the consent of a private party."

ASTM v Public.Resource.Org (2023)[ref]:

"We hold that the non-commercial dissemination of such standards, as incorporated by reference into law, constitutes fair use"

1st Circuit

__ BOCA* v Code Technology (1980)[ref]:

"The citizens are the authors of the law, and therefore its owners, regardless of who actually drafts the provisions, because the law derives its authority from the consent of the public, expressed through the democratic process."

3rd Circuit

ASTM v UpCodes (2026)[ref]:

"Enhanced public access to the law is a clear and significant public benefit. ... once the Works were incorporated by reference into law — which occurred before UpCodes’ copying — they moved even further to the periphery of copyright’s core protection"

5th Circuit

SBCCI* v Veeck (2002)[ref]:

"Our short answer is that as law, the model codes enter the public domain and are not subject to the copyright holder's exclusive prerogatives."

CSA v PS Knight (2024)[ref]:

"because CSA’s model codes are incorporated into Canadian law, Knight’s copying of those codes is not infringement."

...

"And all material that has been validly incorporated by reference carries the force of law and is treated as having been published in the Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations"

11th Circuit

Georgia v Public.Resource.org (2018)[ref]:

"The resulting work is intrinsically public domain material, belonging to the People, and, as such, must be free for publication by all. As a result, no valid copyright can subsist in these works."

...

"the law falls plainly outside the realm of copyright protection"

District Cases

Additionally, there have been numerous rulings at the district level, including many of UpCodes' cases it's defending. No court has ever ordered UpCodes to remove free access to the law.

In the Southern District of New York, ICC v UpCodes (2020)[ref]:

"The Court concludes, however, that the case law is ultimately consistent. It compels a holding that the I-Codes as Adopted are in the public domain, because they are in fact enacted state and local laws binding on the enacting jurisdictions' constituents."

...

"A private party cannot exercise its copyrights to restrict the public’s access to the law."

....

"On balance, the Court is persuaded that accurate posting of the I-Codes as Adopted is a fair use as a matter of law."

In the Eastern District of Missouri, FGI v UpCodes (2023)[ref]:

"The Court is persuaded that UpCodes’ posting of the FGI Guidelines that have been adopted into law likely constitutes fair use. As such, there is not a fair chance that FGI will succeed on its copyright infringement claim."

__

In the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, ASTM v UpCodes (2024)[ref]:

"There is significant evidence of the practical value of providing unfettered access to technical standards that have been incorporated into law."

...

"UpCodes — like Public Resource — is permitted to reproduce in full the relevant portions of standards that have been incorporated by reference into law."

Cases Against Free Law

There are no cases that said you can own the law, the case law is fully consistent. The proponents of Pro Codes Act try to muddy the waters by either making vague claims without evidence, or pointing to some unrelated cases.

For example, they point to CCC v Maclean (2nd Circuit) and Practice Management v AMA (9th Circuit), but those cases were not about the law. According to by the 5th Circuit[ref]:

"CCC and Practice Management “involved compilations of data that had received governmental approval, not content that had been enacted into positive law”"

and the Solicitor General of the United States weighed in on these two cases saying[ref]:

"The Fifth Circuit's narrow decision in this case is consistent with the only one of those decisions to address an analogous circumstance, and it does not conflict with the two other decisions, which addressed substantially different factual and legal issues."

*BOCA and SBCCI are two of three entities that came together to form ICC [ref]

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That the publishers need to restrict access to the law to make money and survive is the most successful lie they've pushed.

First, a large amount of the work is done by volunteers and even government officials. Second, they already have many alternative ways to make money. For example, 86% of ICC’s revenue come from program services, including consulting, certification, and training, which do not rely on profiting by limiting access to the law [2].

ICC is making more money than they ever despite UpCodes being around since February 2016 and posting laws based on ICC codes. Attempting to own the law is unnecessary to maintain their revenue and exorbitant executive salaries.

Additionally, as the DC Circuit Court concluded in ASTM v Public.Resource.Org (2023)[ref]:

"Public Resource has been posting incorporated standards for fifteen years. Yet the plaintiffs have been unable to produce any economic analysis showing that Public Resource's activity has harmed any relevant market for their standards. To the contrary, ASTM's sales have increased over that time"

And from the ruling in Veeck v SBCCI (2002)[ref] and cited again in ICC v UpCodes (2020)[ref]:

"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."

SBCCI went on to become ICC has been increasing its revenue year over year as seen in their Form 990 (https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/363999004), recently breaking through $100M in revenue.

And from a ruling in ASTM v UpCodes (2024)[ref]:

"Also, ASTM may derive new benefits when other entities reference ASTM standards. For example, when ASTM standards are adopted into law, ASTM can market its own compliance-focused training materials."

and in the 3rd Circuit ruling affirming this in 2026[ref]:

"we cannot predict significant market harm based on UpCodes’ copying"

No, the publishers are trying to position the bill as improving access when it actually does the opposite.

The public already has access to the law through public interest groups' websites, UpCodes and others. The publishers are trying to establish a monopoly on the law. They claim they provide free access, but they often just provide an extremely limited version of the law through ham-strung "reading rooms". These are designed to force the public to pay for proper access.

Before UpCodes and other public interest groups came on the scene, almost all of these publishers provided no free access at all.

The bill aims to allow the law publishers to do all kinds of anti-user behavior. We've seen them limit access in the past by:

• disabling find (CTRL+F)

• using small font size that is blurry when you zoom in

• disabling copy/paste

• disabling printing for offline use

• not providing access for disabled folks (such as the blind)

• requiring page-flipping animations to get to your target page (so to see page 375, having to "flip" the page 375 times)

• making the reading room very hard to find, but the books for sale easy to find

• forcing user to agree that the publisher may “suspend or discontinue providing” access to the standards “with or without cause and without notice.”

• forcing user to fill out a long, onerous registration form

Just looking at the law is insufficient. Americans must be allowed to "speak" the law without having to license the law. This includes quoting, criticizing, and disseminating the law.

The DC Circuit Court noted some of these in the ASTM v Public.Resource.Org (2023) final ruling[ref]:

"the plaintiffs' reading rooms do not provide equivalent or even convenient access to the incorporated standards. Among other things, text is not searchable, cannot be printed or downloaded, and cannot be magnified without becoming blurry. Often, a reader can view only a portion of each page at a time and, upon zooming in, must scroll from right to left to read a single line of text. Public Resource's postings suffer from none of these shortcomings."

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation[ref]:

"the Pro Codes Act is a deceptive power grab that will help giant industry associations ration access to huge swaths of U.S. laws"

In an amicus brief authored by 62 library associations, senior government officials and others, it was noted these kind of tricks date back to the Romans[ref]:

"The emperor Gaius (popularly Caligula) sought to finance his lavish lifestyle with oppressive taxes. When the people demanded to have the law behind the taxes posted, the emperor complied, but only “in exceedingly small letters on a tablet which he then hung up in a high place.”³ The historian Suetonius noted the effect of this charade: Like the standards organizations in this case, Gaius sought “to prevent the making of a copy."

In another amicus brief submitted by the NAACP, they wrote[ref]:

"Organizers, many of whom are volunteers, must be able to access the applicable laws and regulations in myriad contexts, including meetings where internet access is often unavailable. They must also be able to forward that information by email, download and print it, copy and paste relevant sections into multiple documents, bring copies to community meetings, and distribute them widely. The reading rooms permit none of those things.... [Further] families in financial distress, who are in legal disputes with their landlords over housing conditions, or who are under threat of eviction, often struggle to pay for home internet. This “digital divide” can make access to the reading rooms difficult or impossible for those who might need it most. In these cases, community members need to rely on NAACP volunteers or staff to conduct research on their behalf, and print or copy the relevant sections."

The publishers have a track record showing they would abuse a monopoly over the law if they attained it. Public.Resource.Org noted in their brief[ref]:

"Plaintiffs have a track record of exercising their claim to a copyright veto power arbitrarily, as when ASTM denied a graduate student’s request for permission to use excerpts from a standard in a research paper"

Multiple courts have had issues accessing the law they needed to make their ruling due to publisher-imposed limitations on making it available. In the same ASTM v Public.Resource.Org case, it was noted[ref]:

"Courts and litigants have been frustrated by the inability to access the laws that affect their cases. In 2017, for example, the Indiana Supreme Court was unable to obtain a safety code that lay at the heart of a dispute before it because of publisher-imposed limitations on access to the code. ... The court discussed at length the problem of public access to the law caused by restrictions on material incorporated by reference."

These laws regulate building professionals, homeowners and many others. They affect the buildings we all live, work, and sleep in every day. Without tools to manage the increasing complexity of regulations, safety is compromised and the cost of homes and commercial buildings increases.

Every year in the US, billions of dollars are wasted on compliance. This ranges from design, government approvals, construction rework, to building occupation (including insurance rates and frequent compliance lawsuits).

"The single greatest cause of rising housing prices is excessive regulations that increase the time and cost of building new homes."

- Regulatory Costs Add a Whopping $93,870 to New Home Prices - National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) (http://web.archive.org/web/20250721140908/https://www.nahb.org/blog/2021/05/regulatory-costs-add-a-whopping-93870-to-new-home-prices/)

We're trying to eliminate this waste. If construction codes aren't available to those who need them, this burden on all homeowners and renters will keep getting worse. That's the danger of an organization trying to monopolize the law. We all pay the price.

Building codes are already highly complex, like the tax code. There's arguably players in both fields with incentives to keep it that way. But imagine if a single corporation owned the tax code and you could only access it through their hamstrung reading room. In addition to other concerns, It would be even more burdensome and costly to tax filers because then there would be no software innovation to help automate compliance.

UpCodes saves 15 hours per month per user on average (as reported by users themselves). If the industry didn't have this tool, then AEC professionals would have to bill more and that cost would ultimately be passed on to the consumer of buildings.

No, the publishers desire their model codes be adopted into law. In fact, they spend money lobbying governments to get these enacted into law.

It ends up being quite lucrative to control what the law is. ICC has successfully built many product lines outside of charging for the code. These product lines account for the majority of their revenue. Today, they make more money than they ever have before despite UpCodes and other platforms providing open access to these laws.

From the Veeck v SBCCI (2002) ruling[ref]:

"This is not, however, a “takings case”, not least because SBCCI urged localities to adopt its model codes. The issue in the case is not the voluntariness of the appropriation but the legal consequences flowing from the permission that SBCCI gave."

and from the ICC v UpCodes (2020) ruling[ref]:

"ICC undisputedly encourages the adoption of its model codes into law as a general matter, which counsels against according its Takings Clause concerns particularly great weight."

Take the example of a lobbyist who writes a draft bill and then spends money and time lobbying politicians to enact their draft bill into law. Does the lobbyist then retain ownership of the law? Is there a taking by government there? Of course not. This is a very similar case to codes, except that the publishers didn't write the prospective legislation, volunteers did, including government officials.

Yes, they are tax-exempt non-profits, although highly lucrative ones with exorbitant compensation packages for their executives. For example, ICC's CEO makes $1,429,043 / year[ref], over 10x the median salary for a non-profit CEO of $124,244 / year[ref]. ASTM's CEO's salary fluctuates, but one year it was $5,324,158[ref].

But in general, these publishers do provide a useful service by organizing volunteers to do the work of writing the codes that get adopted into law.

They certainly don't always act like typical non-profits though. For example, the New York Times reports that the ICC entered into a “secret agreement” that “has allowed the nation’s homebuilders to make it much easier to block changes to building codes that would require new houses to better address climate change” [ref]:

"Secret Deal Helped Housing Industry Stop Tougher Rules on Climate Change"

Not at all. First, the codes are written by volunteers many of whom include government officials working in their official capacity (and paid through taxes to author the codes). According to Public.Resource.Org, "in the case of ASHRAE, for example, over 100 U.S. government officials from organizations that include the Army, Air Force, Centers for Disease Control, numerous national laboratories, Department of Energy, ... play an integral part in the standards development process"[ref].

In ICC v. UpCodes (2020), Judge Marrero noted[ref]:

"The process also involves significant participation by government representatives, who compose at least one-third of each committee and vote on important decisions regarding changes to the model codes."

Second, governments would have to purchase copies of the very laws they enforce. In Sonoma County, California, for example, the Chief Building Inspector reported that before these laws were posted for free, he had to spend $30,000 every code cycle on codes and because of the high cost, he was unable to give his inspectors sufficient copies to do their jobs properly[ref].

Finally, taxpayers must comply with the law. If the publishers had their way, they would have to pay for proper access to the law.

No, all laws on sites like UpCodes, Public.Resource.Org and Internet Archive are completely free and unfettered. They're monetarily free – there's no charge to fully access the law and there never will be. They're also free as in free speech – users may copy the law, share the law, quote the law, print the law, etc.

UpCodes makes money from premium services. It has various products such as automated compliance workflows (similar to tax software that automates your filing instead of reading the raw tax code), a specification editors (for creating the document detailing the construction), an automated 2D plan checker, explanatory materials, etc.

No one should profit off restricting access to the law.

ASTM v UpCodes (2026)[ref]:

"UpCodes does not charge users for access to the Works [incorporated into law]… it makes the Works available to all users, regardless of subscription status, and offers a paid subscription for advanced features"

ICC v UpCodes (2020)[ref]:

"UpCodes provides the I-Codes as Adopted to the general public for free"

FGI v UpCodes (2023)[ref]:

"Any user can view and copy a supported jurisdiction’s codes—with that jurisdiction’s amendments integrated into the text—for free and without registering for an account. … [UpCodes] derives no direct monetary benefit from posting the FGI Guidelines as adopted"

Over 50 different public interest groups and other organizations oppose this bill and privately own laws in general. The full list is ref.

The Director of the U.S. Copyright Office, Shira Perlmutter, has even weighed in saying she agrees with the courts[ref]:

"The public should have access to standards when they are incorporated into the law, because the public does have the right of access to the law. ... the use of them generally falls under fair use as it is for purposes of understanding, using, and applying the law. So, at present we think the courts are handling this in an appropriate way."

The publishers have pushed an absurd narrative that codes adopted into law by reference are not the law, but rather how-to guides or educational content. The codes were even compared to a Betty Crocker cookbook in a 2026 congressional hearing.

The difference is that if you defy Betty Crocker by cooking pasta the way you like it, you will not be imprisoned. Not so for the codes, they carry government-imposed civil and criminal penalties for incompliance.

No court has ever taken their argument seriously.

DC Circuit

ASTM v Public.Resource.Org (2023)[ref]:

"the legal effect of IBR is that the referenced material is treated as if it were published in the Federal Register and the CFR. When IBRed, this material has the force and effect of law."

1st Circuit

__ BOCA v Code Technology (1980)[ref]:

"Regulations such as the Massachusetts building code have the effect of law and carry sanctions of fine and imprisonment for violations"

3rd Circuit

ASTM v UpCodes (2026)[ref]:

"Pursuant to its policy to publish only the law, UpCodes does not publish unincorporated standards."

5th Circuit

SBCCI v Veeck (2002)[ref]:

"When those codes are enacted into law, however, they become to that extent “the law” of the governmental entities"

CSA v PS Knight (2024)[ref]:

"when Canadian jurisdictions incorporate CSA’s model codes by reference into their laws, CSA’s codes become ‘the law’ of those Canadian jurisdictions"

The publishers also create and sell separate explanatory handbooks. Among other activities, this is how their revenue continues growing despite not being able to monopolize the law. None of these cases were about the explanatory handbooks.