(Availiable online)

Full MLA citation:  Feist Puiblications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Company, Inc.,499 US 340 (1991). No. 89-1909. Supreme Ct. of the U.S. 27 March 1991.

"Syllabus

Respondent Rural Telephone Service Company is a certified public utility providing telephone service to several communities in Kansas. Pursuant to state regulation, Rural publishes a typical telephone directory, consisting of white pages and yellow pages. It obtains data for the directory from subscribers, who must provide their names and addresses to obtain telephone service. Petitioner Feist Publications, Inc., is a publishing company that specializes in area-wide telephone directories covering a much larger geographic range than directories such as Rural's. When Rural refused to license its white pages listings to Feist for a directory covering 11 different telephone service areas, Feist extracted the listings it needed from Rural's directory without Rural's consent. Although Feist altered many of Rural's listings, several were identical to listings in Rural's white pages. The District Court granted summary judgment to Rural in its copyright infringement suit, holding that telephone directories are copyrightable. The Court of Appeals affirmed.

Held: Rural's white pages are not entitled to copyright, and therefore Feist's use of them does not constitute infringement. Pp. 499 U. S. 344-364."

Extended Summary and Evaluation

This 1991 US Supreme Court Case (No. 89-1909) revisited the boundaries of authorship and creativity in particular relationship to the publication of facts. It provides detailed analysis of the US Copyright Law's stipulation for originality and can be applied in arguments against furthering the reach of copyright. The case also uses and defines several sets of terms that are important to copyright discourse, including "sweat of the brow."

Points to consider from the final ruling:

• the content was not original ("the Constitution mandates originality as a prerequisite for copyright protection;" "sine qua non of copyright is originality")
  • "Original" in this case has two facets
    • content was created by author
    • content was at least minimally creative in nature
  • Originality does not require novelty; nothing needs to be new so long as it's not copied
• the content was not a creative product
  • the content was not "authored" as it was a directory of facts, and only the way in which those facts were presented and designed could be copyrighted.
  • the data was arranged in a traditional way that all white pages are arranged and could not be considered original
• as copyright is meant to extend the protection for continually progressing knowledge and art, copyright only extends over compiled facts in their existing format. "Copying" occurs when that format, arrangement, and selesction is duplicated without alteration.

  • "More than a century ago, the Court observed: 'The very object of publishing a book on science or the useful arts is to communicate to the world the useful knowledge which it contains. But this object would be frustrated if the knowledge could not be used without incurring the guilt of piracy of the book.' Baker v. Selden, 101 U. S. 99, 101 U. S. 103 (1880)."

• the original ruling incorrectly took into consideration the work put into compiling the facts; this work may have simulated but did not actually count as authoring of the data     

• "sweat of the brow" limits authors intending to create works based on factual compilations, thus "flouting" copyright principles (remember principles: a) copyright protects the original work and is intended to support the growth of knowledge and culture; b) facts aren't copyrightable in order to maintatin a.

• Registrar of Copyright actually requested Congress clear up "sweat of the brow" issue in 1961

• "The definition of "compilation" is found in § 101 of the 1976 Act. It defines a "compilation" in the copyright sense as "a work formed by the collection and assembly of preexisting materials or of data that are selected, coordinated, or arranged in such a way that the resulting work, as a whole, constitutes an original work of authorship." (Emphasis added.) Page 499 U. S. 357" 

  •      Three requirements for a copyrightable compilation

    • content is a collection of preexisting facts

    • ***selection, coordination, and arrangement of facts is unique/original***

    • due to the nature of the compilation or gathering of facts, authorship is apparent

• Copyright of facts only protects original contributions of author

  • "As § 103 makes clear, copyright is not a tool by which a compilation author may keep others from using the facts or data he or she has collected. 'The most important point here is one that is commonly misunderstood today: copyright . . . has no effect one way or the other on the copyright or public domain status of the preexisting material.'"