Supreme Court rules that building codes cannot be copyrighted

In a split decision with wide-ranging implications, the United States Supreme Court has ruled that states are not allowed to copyright their building codes or the annotations that provide guidance for those regulations. The New York Times reports that the 5-4 ruling, transcended the typical liberal-conservative split of the court in articulating a broader reading of existing judicial guidance establishing that laws and legislative work cannot be copyrighted.  The decision could help make these codes more widely available for users, including architects, and might help advance the proliferation of design assistance services that use automated processes to plug building codes into Building Information Models and other design review software.  In the decision, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, states, “If everything short of statutes and opinions were copyrightable, then states would be free to offer a whole range of premium legal works for those who can affo...