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become to that extent "the law" of the governmental entities and may be reproduced or distributed as "the law" of those jurisdictions.

B. Other Provisions[1]

SBCCI's amici make much of provisions of the Copyright Act that, they contend, should protect SBCCI's copyrights from "appropriation" by local government entities. Act, taken together with the definition Section 105 of the of "works of the government," denies copyright protection to official works of the United States Government, while reserving the possibility that government employees and contractors may obtain, or transfer to the government, copyrights for non-official works. 101. On its face, these provisions say 17 U.S.C. §§ 105, nothing about the relationship between non-federal government entities and copyright holders. Moreover, they have never been held inconsistent with Banks or with the merger doctrine.

Section 201(e) of the Act reflects Congress's intention to protect copyrights from involuntary appropriation by government entities. 17 U.S.C.? 201(e). 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


  1. Veeck also raised infringement defenses based on his fair use of the model codes or SBCCI's waiver of its copyrights. It is unnecessary to reach these issues.

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