Courts Expand Public Access to the Law

A federal appeals court says building codes aren’t locked behind paywalls.

In a decision handed down in April 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld a lower court’s ruling that copying and disseminating building codes that have been incorporated into federal and state law can qualify as fair use. The codes in question were developed by private bodies—most notably ASTM—and later adopted or incorporated by reference into law, where they are relied upon by lawmakers, inspectors, and practitioners alike. The opinion follows a growing cluster of court cases that have pushed back against private copyright claims when the results become part of the public legal framework.

The decision centers on UpCodes, a database that aggregates building codes such as the National Electrical Code and makes them accessible online. ASTM has argued that it retains copyright in those standards even after adoption into law, raising questions about whether the public can freely access and share the codes that govern safety and compliance. The Third Circuit’s ruling, echoing the reasoning of other courts, found that allowing broad access to legally binding codes serves a fundamental public purpose and falls within fair use—even if the underlying standards remain privately authored.

The ruling underscores a judicial trend: when a standard becomes law, its accessibility to the public increasingly takes on a quasi-public character. The D.C. Circuit and Fifth Circuit have entertained related arguments in other cases, with the former holding that making standards accessible online can be a fair use, and the latter suggesting that incorporation into law can strip certain copyright protections away from those standards. The Third Circuit’s decision aligns with that broader legal trajectory and comes after the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and other advocates filed amicus briefs to emphasize the public interest in open access to the law.

For practitioners, the ruling carries tangible consequences. Homebuilders, architects, and code compliance officers may now rely more confidently on freely accessible references when verifying code compliance, rather than risking gaps caused by paywalls or licensing hurdles. Libraries and public-interest groups—already accustomed to distributing legal resources—gain a stronger footing to provide community access to the very texts that shape safety and building standards. For the market around standards development, the decision could foreshadow shifts in licensing models or how publishers price codified norms once they become law, as the financial incentive to restrict access competes with a clarified public-rights posture.

Industry observers say two things to watch next. First, whether other appellate courts or the Supreme Court take up similar questions and how they refine the balance between copyright protection and the public’s right to read the law. Second, whether standards bodies adjust by offering mandated, fee-free access to the legally binding versions of their codes or by carving out exemptions for codes that are incorporated into law. In the meantime, the Third Circuit’s ruling strengthens a practical, governance-friendly reading of copyright: when a private standard becomes law, the public’s ability to access, discuss, and scrutinize that law should not be inhibited by copyright claims.

Sources

Another Court Rules Copyright Can’t Stop People From Reading and Speaking the Law