A recent appellate decision has given renewed significance to a legal issue that is more than 150 years old: Can “the law” be copyrighted?

In Veeck v. Southern Building Code Congress Int’l, Inc, the U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc, ruled that municipal laws may be reproduced on the Internet, even if the laws incorporate copyrighted, privately drafted model building codes.[1]� The issue may soon reach the U.S. Supreme Court.