nat'l elect code/copyrights/ enacted as law

[justalayman]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? federal issue.


I have been in discussions for a couple years with folks over copyright law and building codes and would enjoy any thoughts on it. I'll start with a bit of background.

NFPA (national fire protection assoc) writes and publishes the National Electrical Code (NEC) and has done so for over 70 years.

it is a book of standards and practices for electrical installations. As the originator of the work, the NFPA claims copyrights to it.

the NEC is accepted, most often exactly as written, as the codes applicable to electrical installations across the country.

the NFPA has included a notice that they do not permit any code board to include the NEC verbatim into the codes but has only allowed it's inclusion by reference. As such the NFPA has not granted any entity license to reproduce the NEC.

the problem comes with when there is a law, it is not able to be granted any form of copyright protections and there in is the problem.

in 2003, the 5th district federal court of appeals has ruled that the NFPA cannot claim copyrights to their own book as the courts deem it to be considered to be a law and since you cannot copyright a law, there can be no copyright protection for the NFPA.

the NFPA still claims they have copyright protection and as such can refuse to allow any other entity to copy their works but since the government agancies have accepted it as their law, they must be able to provide copies to the public. a conundrum.

so, anybody have any thoughts as to what the real answer is?

 

[FlyingRon]

The fifth circuit only sets a precedent for the fifth circuit. It's talking about the SCBBI building codes, but you're right it probably applies to the NEC

Of course even with the code in the public domain, NEC can try to assert copyright. They won't prevail in court but they can assert what they want. Further, Veeck points out that only the dry statutes are public domain. Any annotated version (like the NEC HANDBOOK) is still protectable by copyright.

 

[justalayman]

but my contention is the NFPA maintains their copyrights as they are the originator. The government entities, for lack of a better term, steals them from the NFPA and without due compenstion (5th amend violation?)

How can the government simply take a work from the legal copyright holder without due process. And since the book is re-edited every 3 years, they do it every 3 years.

this is not a work compiled by any government entity. It is a private entity that the government has determined the NFPA rules are a good idea and as such, takes them in their entirety from the NFPA without compensation.

there is no justification for a recent publication to be considered to be in the public domain.

What is to stop them from taking any book and claiming it for the good of the public and invalidating any copyrights?

a letter from somebody at the NFPA that explains thing in a better way than I do.

http://www.nfpa.org/publicColumn.asp?categoryID=740&itemID=19798&src=NFPAJournal&cookie_test=1

and for anybody interested, a link to the ruling :


http://www.altlaw.org/v1/cases/131504

 

[FlyingRon]

In the Veeck decision, the organization writing the "model code" SCBBI wrote and asserted copyright. However, it's not like the state just took the code and turned it into law and screwed the authors out of their copyright. The copyright holder was an organization that the states subscribed to and supported in order to use that model code as theirs. SCBBI knew going into it that there was risk in licensing their stuff to the state.

The judges made analogy to the courts use of allowing private enterprises to publish court decisions. The decisions themselves don't become copyright protected, but any annotation or commentary wrapped around can.

 

[divgradcurl]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? federal issue.


I have been in discussions for a couple years with folks over copyright law and building codes and would enjoy any thoughts on it. I'll start with a bit of background.

NFPA (national fire protection assoc) writes and publishes the National Electrical Code (NEC) and has done so for over 70 years.

it is a book of standards and practices for electrical installations. As the originator of the work, the NFPA claims copyrights to it.

the NEC is accepted, most often exactly as written, as the codes applicable to electrical installations across the country.

the NFPA has included a notice that they do not permit any code board to include the NEC verbatim into the codes but has only allowed it's inclusion by reference. As such the NFPA has not granted any entity license to reproduce the NEC.

the problem comes with when there is a law, it is not able to be granted any form of copyright protections and there in is the problem.

in 2003, the 5th district federal court of appeals has ruled that the NFPA cannot claim copyrights to their own book as the courts deem it to be considered to be a law and since you cannot copyright a law, there can be no copyright protection for the NFPA.

the NFPA still claims they have copyright protection and as such can refuse to allow any other entity to copy their works but since the government agancies have accepted it as their law, they must be able to provide copies to the public. a conundrum.

so, anybody have any thoughts as to what the real answer is?

I am not sure where you came up with that idea. The federal government is not allowed to hold a copyright in works it creates, so federal statutes and federal cases are public domain, see 17 U.S.C. 105. But there is no such limitation on the states -- and many (if not all) states do assert copyrights over their statutes.

And the Federal government can hold (and assert) copyrights on materials that were not created for the government, if the federal government later comes into possession of such copyrighted materials.

Most states that adopt building or fire codes from standards-setting bodies will purchase enough copies and make those copies available for the public to review at public libraries. No state, that I am aware of, makes those sorts of codes available for free on the internet.

 

[justalayman]

. However, it's not like the state just took the code and turned it into law and screwed the authors out of their copyright. The copyright holder was an organization that the states subscribed to and supported in order to use that model code as theirs

Not true.

The organization is a privately funded non-profit organization that is not supported by government funds other than the government purchasing compilations of their standards, which, when they enact them into law, makes that not required.

the fact that there is no area bound by the codes until such time the state actually votes to accept them in their state codes. No entity is required to accept the codes and in fact, there are several areas in the country that do not accept the NEC as their standards and they develop their own standards.

As well, your claim is refuted by the fact that each state, and even often smaller jurisdictions, act independently in enacting these standards as law.




yes, they did summarily seize the standards without compensation and by removing the copyrights, they removed a very large source of their funding to continue the efforts that resulted in the standards the government took.

In an effort to preclude such actions, the NFPA specifically refuses to license their standards to be put, verbatim, into law. They agree only that the standards be accepted by reference. As such, you will not find the standards verbatim in any laws, they are included only by reference. At what point does the government decide "oh, I like those rules. They make sense. I think we will include them in our laws and as such, now we simply get to remove their copyrights". and not pay the originator of the works for their efforts.

This sounds a lot like many situations where the government removes private ownership in the name of the betterment of the public. I think they called that communism.

If the governments want to have the NFPA create standards intended to be law, those governments need to hire the NFPA to create those standards. As is it, they are simply stealing without just compensation.