Brief Fact Summary.

A publishing company used

information from a telephone directory to publish its own
directory.

Synopsis of Rule of Law. To qualify for copyright

protection, a work must be original to the author, which
means that the work was independently created by the
author, and it possesses at least some minimal degree
of creativity. A work may be original even thought it
closely resembles other works so long as the similarity
is fortuitous, not the result of copying.

Facts. Rural Telephone Service Company, Inc.

(Plaintiff) provides telephone service to several
communities. Due to a state regulation, it must issue an
annual telephone directory, so it published a directory
consisting of white and yellow pages. The yellow pages
have advertisements that generate revenue. Feist
Publications, Inc. (Defendant) is a publishing company
whose directory covers a larger range than a typical
directory. Defendant distributes their telephone books
free of charge, and they also generate revenue through
the advertising in the yellow pages. Plaintiff refused to
give a license to Defendant for the phone numbers in
the area, so Defendant used them without Plaintiff’s
consent. Rural sued for copyright infringement.
Issue. Are the names, addresses, and phone numbers
in a telephone directory able to be copyrighted?

Held. No.
Facts cannot be copyrighted, however compilations of
facts can generally be copyrighted.
To qualify for copyright protection, a work must be
original to the author, which means that the work was
independently created by the author, and it possesses
at least some minimal degree of creativity. A work may
be original even thought it closely resembles other works
so long as the similarity is fortuitous, not the result of
copying.
Facts are not original. The first person to find and report
a particular fact has not created the fact; he has merely
discovered its existence. Facts may not be copyrighted
and are part of the public domain available to every
person.
Factual compilations may possess the requisite
originality. The author chooses what facts to include, in
what order to place them, and how to arrange the
collected date so they may be effectively used by
readers. Thus, even a directory that contains no written
expression that could be protected, only facts, meets the
constitutional minimum for copyright protection if it
features an original selection or arrangement. But, even
though the format is original, the facts themselves do not
become original through association. The copyright on a
factual compilation is limited to formatting. The copyright
does not extend to the facts themselves.
To establish copyright infringement, two elements must
be proven: ownership of a valid copyright and copying of
constituent elements of the work that are original. The
first element is met in this case because the directory
contains some forward text. As to the second element,
the information contains facts, which cannot be
copyrighted. They existed before being reported and
would have continued to exist if a telephone directory
had never been published. There is no originality in the
formatting, so there is no copyrightable expression.
Thus, there is no copyright infringement.

Discussion.Facts cannot be subject to copyright laws;

otherwise there would be no spreading of information
or learning. Subjecting facts to copyright laws would
mean that any time a person used a fact found in a
book, be it in a school paper, newspaper, or another
book, that person would be guilty of piracy.