Copyright of databases

[BobLoblaw]

You guys were really helpful on my previous question, so I'll ask one more. Then I'll leave you all alone for a while, I promise.

How does US copyright law apply to databases? Say I find a book or publication by a private company that is a massive list of information that I could create by myself.

Some examples of such lists would be:

A list of all US coins and how many were minted each year.
A list of the recent market value of several numismatic coins.
A list of the freezing points of many common liquids.
A list of the current population of each US town.
A list of the world's tallest buildings.
A list of words in the English language (just a list of words, no definitions).

My point is, if I compiled any of those lists myself, they would be identical to some published list I have access to.

Say I find a list of one of those items above. The list is published by a private company, and the publication contains the standard copyright notice and a "all rights reserved" notice.

I could of course recreate any of those lists myself given enough time, but am I free to simply copy that information and then reuse it for my own purposes (including republishing it)?

To clarify, I am talking about only copying the information itself, not any of the layout or anything else like that.

Thanks.

 

[FlyingRon]

Facts can not be copyrighted.

 

[quincy]

BUT the selection of facts and how they are compiled IS subject to copyright protection.

You can use the facts, pick and choose, arrange them as you wish - but you cannot make an exact copy of the work someone else created (and it is especially not wise since most compilers will add a "phony" somewhere in their lists to ensure someone does not copy their work exactly or, if someone does copy, they will know who it is ). You cannot republish someone else's work and claim it as your own.

An example: Dictionaries are books of facts. All dictionaries have words and all of the words are arranged in alphabetical order. Not all dictionaries have the same words included, however - some may include slang words, other archaic words. The definitions of these words are obviously all going to be similar, but how the definitions are expressed can be copyrightable (ie. sentences used as examples, variations of the word). Copying the entire selection of a dictionary's entries can be seen as infringement. That is why you see copyright notices and "all rights reserved" in dictionaries and other books of facts.

So, while facts and "sweat of the brow" compiling is not copyrightable, other parts of a work ARE copyrightable. Especially when you see a copyright notice displayed in the front of a work (even though notice of copyright is not required under the law), assume you will be sued if you make an exact copy of what appears.

 

[BobLoblaw]

Assuming I copy the facts, but present them in a completely different order/layout, should I be OK?

In my case I am thinking about using OCR to obtain many facts from a book, and presenting them in a search-able database online for free. Somebody went to a lot of hard work to obtain these facts to begin with, but I would come up with the exact same facts if I did the same hard work myself.

The phony entry thing does scare me a bit. If a "phony" entry was copied, that would prove that I borrowed their facts, but how much trouble could I really get in? The phony entry isn't worth anything. Actually a phony entry would be a determent to anyone who read it.

I'm not considering coping a dictionary, by the way. If two people wrote a definition for a word, it's very unlikely that the definitions would be identical. Therefor, I wouldn't really consider a dictionary entry "a fact."

However, if two people listed the freezing point of water and salt water (32F and 0F respectively) they would almost certainly list the exact same figures. It's only cases like that I'm considering, as much as possible.

I thought of another example too. Many companies sell historical stock market data for pretty big premiums. Could someone buy that data and release it to the public for free?

Thanks a ton.

 

[tranquility]

The phony entry is not what is measured, but that you copied the whole.

 

[BobLoblaw]

The phony entry is not what is measured, but that you copied the whole.

But even if I copy half, or a quarter, or combine several entries from different companies, I could still end up with several phony entries. Of course it proves I copied the facts, but does it matter?

 

[tranquility]

Yes, it does. Independent actions (Which is why may intellectual property firms do not accept *any* submissions.)differ from copying.

 

[quincy]

Bob, it may help you to know what the actual U.S. Copyright Act says about compilations (the entire Act can be found at U.S. Copyright Office).

Under §101 of the Act, a compiliation is defined as: "a work formed by the collection and assembling of preexisting material 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. The term "compilation" includes collective works."

What you need to do with the facts you collect is assemble them in a way that makes them original to you. And you should verify that the "facts" you are presenting in your original work are, in fact, facts (or you can find yourself under investigation for copyright infringement).

In other words, while you do not need to put in the time and effort that others did in compiling the very first list of a certain set of facts or a certain collection of data (the "sweat of the brow" work), you still have to put in some time and effort.

 

[divgradcurl]

You can use the facts, pick and choose, arrange them as you wish - but you cannot make an exact copy of the work someone else created (and it is especially not wise since most compilers will add a "phony" somewhere in their lists to ensure someone does not copy their work exactly or, if someone does copy, they will know who it is ). You cannot republish someone else's work and claim it as your own.

You may want to re-read Feist v. Rural Telephone.

An example: Dictionaries are books of facts. All dictionaries have words and all of the words are arranged in alphabetical order. Not all dictionaries have the same words included, however - some may include slang words, other archaic words. The definitions of these words are obviously all going to be similar, but how the definitions are expressed can be copyrightable (ie. sentences used as examples, variations of the word). Copying the entire selection of a dictionary's entries can be seen as infringement. That is why you see copyright notices and "all rights reserved" in dictionaries and other books of facts.

This does not accurately describe the rules for the extent of copyright in compilations.

 

[divgradcurl]

Bob, it may help you to know what the actual U.S. Copyright Act says about compilations (the entire Act can be found at U.S. Copyright Office).

Under §101 of the Act, a compiliation is defined as: "a work formed by the collection and assembling of preexisting material 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. The term "compilation" includes collective works."

What you need to do with the facts you collect is assemble them in a way that makes them original to you. And you should verify that the "facts" you are presenting in your original work are, in fact, facts (or you can find yourself under investigation for copyright infringement).

In other words, while you do not need to put in the time and effort that others did in compiling the very first list of a certain set of facts or a certain collection of data (the "sweat of the brow" work), you still have to put in some time and effort.

There is no "authorship" in listing all, or nearly all, of a certain thing in a compilation. Authorship in compilations requires making decisions about what to include that are not rote or obvious.

 

[quincy]

Hey, div. So you just stopped by to say the dictionary example I gave sucked, huh?

Since you seem to think I fumbled a bit with my example, here from Feist is some of what Justice O'Connor said:

"Notwithstanding a valid copyright, a subsequent compiler remains free to use the facts contained in another's publication to aid in preparing a competing work, so long as the competing work does not feature the same selection and arrangement."

"Facts are not copyrightable. Compilation of facts generally are. . .common sense tells us that 100 uncopyrightable facts do not magically change their status when gathered together in one place. Yet copyright law seems to contemplate that compilations that consist exclusively of facts are potentially within its scope..."

"The same is true of all facts - scientific, historical, biographical, and news of the day. They may not be copyrighted and are part of the public domain available to every person."

"Facts are never original, so the compilation author can claim originality, if at all, only in the way the facts are presented."

"Copyright protects only the elements that owe their origin to the compiler - the selection, coordination, and arrangement of facts."

"Copyright does not prevent subsequent users from copying from a prior author's work those constituent elements that are not original - for example. . .facts, or materials in the public domain - so long as such use does not unfairly appropriate the author's original contributions."

 

[divgradcurl]

Hey, div. So you just stopped by to say the dictionary example I gave sucked, huh?

Since you seem to think I fumbled a bit with my example, here from Feist is some of what Justice O'Connor said:

"Notwithstanding a valid copyright, a subsequent compiler remains free to use the facts contained in another's publication to aid in preparing a competing work, so long as the competing work does not feature the same selection and arrangement."

"Facts are not copyrightable. Compilation of facts generally are. . .common sense tells us that 100 uncopyrightable facts do not magically change their status when gathered together in one place. Yet copyright law seems to contemplate that compilations that consist exclusively of facts are potentially within its scope..."

"The same is true of all facts - scientific, historical, biographical, and news of the day. They may not be copyrighted and are part of the public domain available to every person."

"Facts are never original, so the compilation author can claim originality, if at all, only in the way the facts are presented."

"Copyright protects only the elements that owe their origin to the compiler - the selection, coordination, and arrangement of facts."

"Copyright does not prevent subsequent users from copying from a prior author's work those constituent elements that are not original - for example. . .facts, or materials in the public domain - so long as such use does not unfairly appropriate the author's original contributions."

The point from Feist that is important, I think, with your example is in the facts of the case -- Rural Telephone deliberately inserted several fake numbers, that were put there specifically to detect copying, and were in fact copied by Feist -- yet the Court still found no infringement of any copyright protections Rural had.

That was the reason I cited Feist.

Further, a dictionary -- listing words with their definitions in alphabetical order -- would appear to be exactly the kind of "mechanical or routine" arrangement that the Court found to be insufficient to meet even a very low threshold of creativity. Whether or not the words themselves used to make up the definitions are themselves copyrightable would depend on how the words themselves are used -- is it really the only way (or close to the only way) to define a word, or is it a creative way to define a word.

I am not here to say this or that sucked, I just didn't think it was an accurate analogy.

I think you posted a simple test in another post that can be used for any copyrighted work --if you strip away all of the noncopyrightable parts of a work (facts, scenes a faire, de minimus uses, mechanical or routine selections and layouts, etc.), what's left (if anything) is the copyrighted material. That would seem to be the better course of action here, looking at the problem from the bottom up, rather than the top down. When you have a collection of facts, chances are the copyrighted pieces are a very small component of the overall work, so it's best to strip away the noncopyrighted pieces to get at the copyrighted part. For a truly creative work, then you go the opposite, top-down, route.

 

[quincy]

It's true that the use of the phone numbers, both real and phony, was not considered infringement by the court. BUT, Rural's planting of the phony phone numbers in their phone books DID lead Rural to who was copying their phone book. . . . .and Feist was sued as a result.

That, I am thinking, is some sort of lesson on copying right there.