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Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Company, Inc.

Supreme Court of the United States

Written Opinion: O'Connor

District Court, Kansas to Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit to Supreme Court

Summary: Rural sued Feist for copyright infringement, as Feist used Rural telephone listings to add listings to its directory, using information that Rural had previously refused to sell.

Procedural History: Lower courts ruled in favor of Rural, Supreme Court overturned ruling and ruled in favor of Feist.

Holding: Inherently unoriginal compilations of fact are not protected by copyright laws.

Notes:

This case seems rather straightforward, but there are several key issues that warrant significant cogitation.

First, facts are not copyrightable. Ever. However, compilations of facts can be copyrightable, but only so far as to the original expression in the compilation- not the facts themselves.

For example, if I say: Jackson is the capital of Mississippi, that is a fact and can be repeated ad nauseum. But if I say: That illustrious and burning beacon of justice which is Jackson serves not only as a capital but also as a Mecca for learners of the law, the way in which I expressed the facts is copyrightable. The basic facts however, still are not protected by copyright.

Secondly, apparently the original copyright statute (from 1909) was terribly ambiguous and the lower courts used it to support- erroneously- the notion that telephone directories were generally copyrightable, using the "sweat of brow" doctrine, which basically rewarded the compiler for his effort. The Supreme Court specifically used this case to stamp out that idea. (The old copyright act was "improved" in 1976.)

The Supreme Court held that a simple phone book listing did not contain the prerequisite modicum of originality necessary for it to pass copyright muster. Therefore, there could be no copyright infringement on the part of Feist.

(On a tangent, the case stated that a few of the names in Rural's directory were purposely fictitious, as a safeguard against their listings being stolen. As these listings were fictitious, they were creations, and should have been protected by copyright. As four of them were included in Feist's listings, one could argue that copyright infringement did occur. However, I assume O'Connor was more interested in the broad effects of the law- commenting on that issue would have made a confusing issue to the lower courts even murkier.)

If you infer further from this ruling, it is not too far a leap to say that one can basically take pre-established telephone listings and use them for free. (Feist paid all of the other directories for the information.) Even if Rural tried to add originality to its listings, only the originality would be protected, and not the basic information.

Thus, even if they changed Larry Roberts, 123-4567 to Snazzy Larry Roberts, 123-4567, the competing telephone directory could simply parse out the facts.

So, in essence, telephone directories are screwed.

They can- you guessed it- call somebody who cares.

How sad is it that I like this stuff?