Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co.
499 U.S. 340 (1991)
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Rule of Law:
To be copyrightable, a factual compilation must feature a selection, coordination, or arrangement of facts that is original and possesses at least a minimal degree of creativity. Copyright protection for a compilation extends only to its original elements, not to the underlying, uncopyrightable facts themselves.
Facts:
- Rural Telephone Service Company, Inc. (Rural) is a public utility providing telephone service in northwest Kansas and is required by state regulation to publish an annual directory.
- Rural's directory includes white pages that list its subscribers alphabetically by surname, along with their town and telephone number.
- Feist Publications, Inc. (Feist) is a publishing company that creates area-wide telephone directories covering a much larger geographical range than typical local directories.
- To obtain listings for its area-wide directory, Feist sought to license the white pages listings from 11 local telephone companies.
- Rural was the only company that refused to license its listings to Feist.
- Feist then copied 1,309 listings—including names, towns, and phone numbers—from Rural's directory without permission.
- Feist's directory also included four fictitious listings that Rural had intentionally placed in its own directory to detect copying.
Procedural Posture:
- Rural sued Feist for copyright infringement in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas.
- The District Court granted summary judgment to Rural, holding that telephone directories are copyrightable.
- Feist, as appellant, appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, with Rural as appellee.
- The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's judgment.
- The U.S. Supreme Court granted Feist's petition for a writ of certiorari to review the appellate court's decision.
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Issue:
Does copyright protection for a telephone directory's white pages extend to the names, towns, and telephone numbers listed, thereby preventing a competitor from copying that information?
Opinions:
Majority - Justice O'Connor
No. The copyright in Rural's directory does not protect the names, towns, and telephone numbers copied by Feist. The Court held that facts are not copyrightable and that the bedrock principle of copyright is originality, not effort. While a compilation of facts can be copyrighted, protection is 'thin' and extends only to the original components of the work—the author's selection, coordination, or arrangement—and not to the raw facts themselves. Rural's white pages, which simply list all subscribers alphabetically, lack the 'minimal degree of creativity' required for copyright protection. The alphabetical arrangement is an 'age-old practice' that is 'uncopyrightable,' 'practically inevitable,' and 'devoid of even the slightest trace of creativity.' In so ruling, the Court explicitly rejected the 'sweat of the brow' or 'industrious collection' doctrine, which had incorrectly granted copyright protection based on the labor invested in compiling facts rather than on creative expression.
Analysis:
This decision is a landmark in U.S. copyright law as it definitively rejected the 'sweat of the brow' doctrine, which had been influential in some circuits. The Court clarified that originality, not labor, is the constitutional prerequisite for copyright protection. By establishing that the copyright for factual compilations is 'thin' and does not extend to the underlying facts, the decision significantly impacts databases, directories, and other collections of information. It promotes the constitutional goal of copyright—the progress of science and arts—by allowing subsequent creators to build upon existing factual works, thereby fostering competition and the dissemination of information.
