In sum, the suggestion that SBCCI's position asks this Court to extend the reach of the copyright law is exactly backwards. The copyrights at issue here were concededly valid before the cities adopted them as codes. The proper question is whether we should invalidate an otherwise valid copyright as well as the solemn contract between the governmental body and SBCCI. That aggressive contention must find stronger legs than the rhetoric it comes clothed in here. The contention comes with no constitutional or statutory text, except its reliance upon the merger doctrine, and that is wordplay. This is federal common law adjudication. Its hallmark must be case-by-case accretion and measured decision making, even if the case-by-case explanation of the permissible restraint upon the copying of an enacted code leads to the conclusion that Veeck urges today—and I am not yet willing to embrace—that invalidity of the copyright is the inevitable consequence of code adoption. Rather, I conclude that Veeck violated the explicit terms of the license he agreed to when he copied model codes for the internet and posted them. I decide no more.
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