tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5800311.post113676151767362879..comments2023-10-24T07:31:18.235-07:00Comments on Goldtoe Lemon.Nut: How to Save Americagoldmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10773351408378125444noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5800311.post-1136910717122212682006-01-10T08:31:00.000-08:002006-01-10T08:31:00.000-08:00So I wanted to share this little legal tidbit - ju...So I wanted to share this little legal tidbit - just read Feist v. Rural, a '91 case which dealt with the copyrightability of white pages.<BR/><BR/>Rural published a local white pages which Feist tried to license so that Feist could compile a directory listing for a slightly larger area. When Rural refused to license the information, Feist took the info, did a little more research to add some info and published it in their own white pages.<BR/><BR/>While most of the entries had changed, Feist's directory had about 1000 entries lifted verbatim from Rural's directory (including four fake entries designed to spot this sort of thing) and sued.<BR/><BR/>The Supreme Court rejected the claim. In order for something to be copyrighted, it has to have some amount of creativity. When you're dealing with a compilation of facts, this is difficult to achieve, because you can't copyright facts, and the court found that there wasn't sufficient creativity to Rural's arrangment of those facts (alpha order listing of all the people in the county with telephones is pretty standard practice for white pages) to grant copyright. So Rural lost. Here's the <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_v._Rural" REL="nofollow">wikipedia link</A>. And here's the <A HREF="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=499&invol=340" REL="nofollow">text of the decision</A>.Matthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03473240679057335490noreply@blogger.com