Should Building Codes Be Free?
The Legal, Ethical, and Technological Battle Over Access to the Law
In the construction and design world, a curious paradox has persisted for decades: the very codes that determine what we are legally allowed to build, design, and inspect are often inaccessible to the public. You are required to follow the law—but you must pay to read it.
This tension is finally beginning to crack. At the heart of the movement is a single, powerful question:
If code is law, should it be behind a paywall?
The Origins of the Debate
The story begins in earnest in 2016, when brothers Scott and Garrett Reynolds launched UpCodes, a searchable online platform designed to help professionals check building code compliance in real time. Their mission was simple: make code compliance more transparent, efficient, and accessible.
But within a year, the International Code Council (ICC) sued them for copyright infringement. ICC, the nonprofit that writes the I-Codes (like the International Building Code), argued that even if the codes were adopted into law by thousands of jurisdictions, they remained ICC’s intellectual property.
UpCodes countered with a bold argument: once a code is enacted into law, it should be free to access.
The Supreme Court Weighs In
A parallel legal battle played out in the nation’s highest court. In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Public.Resource.Org v. Georgia that the annotated version of Georgia’s legal code could not be copyrighted. Even though those annotations were not legally binding, they were created by public officials as part of the legislative process. That, the Court said, made them public domain.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote:
“Officials empowered to speak with the force of law cannot be the authors of the works they create in the course of their official duties.”
The decision set a precedent that shook the world of standards and codes: if lawmakers or public bodies produce or adopt a document in their lawmaking capacity, that document likely belongs to the people.
The UpCodes Victory
In 2023, UpCodes secured a major legal win. A federal judge ruled that material with the force of law—like building codes adopted into legislation—cannot be copyrighted. This wasn’t just a personal victory for the Reynolds brothers; it was a landmark ruling for engineers, architects, builders, and homeowners alike.
For the first time, it was clear that a key pillar of the built environment—the building code—was not just guidance, but public law, and must be treated as such.
Thank you to all our users who wrote their representatives! 🙏
— UpCodes (@upcodes) January 6, 2025
The Pro Codes Act which aims to allow private ownership of the law failed in the 118th Congress. 🎊⚖️
The publishers may try again in the next Congress, but will start from square one.#LawIsFree #ShameOnICC
The Business of Selling the Law
Organizations like ICC, NFPA, and ASCE argue that they rely on sales revenue to fund the development of complex, safety-driven standards. It’s a valid point. Standards don’t write themselves; they are refined over years, often through extensive committee work, technical review, and public input.
But here’s the catch: once a jurisdiction adopts that code as law, the economic model changes. The law is no longer a private good—it becomes public infrastructure. The ethical question becomes sharper: should any person or company have to pay to understand the legal framework they’re bound to follow?
This is especially urgent in a world where compliance is increasingly automated.
AI, Automation, and the Need for Open Access
AI-powered compliance tools are on the rise. Tools like UpCodes’ own AI checker, Ferris’s DeepQuery, and others across the industry are beginning to review designs, flag violations, and provide real-time guidance.
But here’s the problem: AI can’t enforce what it can’t read. If the legal standards are locked behind a paywall or buried in scanned PDFs, intelligent systems become legally blind. The automation revolution in construction and design will stall unless we unlock the legal standards.
The Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling, and the UpCodes win in 2023, pave the way for a future where code isn’t just machine-readable—but machine-accessible.
Global Perspectives: Eurocodes and Beyond
In Europe, the situation varies by country. Some EU member states offer open access to the Eurocodes (a set of harmonized structural design standards), while others continue to license them commercially. The European Commission has come under pressure to standardize access, especially as AI, climate resilience, and cross-border design work grow.
The tension between public interest and private ownership isn’t uniquely American—it’s global. And it’s not going away.
What Comes Next?
We are entering a new era—one where the built environment will increasingly be shaped not only by engineers and regulators, but by the digital systems they rely on. In this world, access to code is access to power.
If building and design codes remain gated behind paywalls, we risk creating a two-tiered system: those who can afford to follow the law, and those who can’t.
But if we embrace open access, we create a foundation for a safer, fairer, and more innovative built world.
The law belongs to the people. And building code, as a form of law, should be no exception.
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