UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
No. 99-40632
PETER VEECK, doing business as Regional Web,Plaintiff/Counter Defendant-Appellant,
versus
SOUTHERN BUILDING CODE CONGRESS INTERNATIONAL, INC., Defendant/Counter Claimant-Appellee.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas
June 7, 2002
Before KING, Chief Judge, JOLLY, HIGGINBOTHAM, DAVIS, JONES, SMITH, WIENER, BARKSDALE, EMILIO M. GARZA, DeMOSS, BENAVIDES, STEWART, PARKER, DENNIS and CLEMENT, Circuit Judges.
EDITH H. JONES, Circuit Judge:
The issue in this en banc case is the extent to which a private organization may assert copyright protection for its model codes, after the models have been adopted by a legislative body and become "the law". Specifically, may a code-writing organization prevent a website operator from posting the text of a model code where the code is identified simply as the building code of a city that enacted the model code as law? Our short answer is that as
