CASE ANALYSIS OF FIEST PUBLICATION INC. VERSUS RURAL TELEPHONE SERVICE CO.

The facts cannot be copyrighted however the compilations of that particular facts can be copyrighted basically under copyright act if an individual wants protection that 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.

CASE ANALYSIS OF FIEST PUBLICATION INC. VERSUS RURAL TELEPHONE SERVICE CO.

Name of the Case: FIEST PUBLICATION INC. VERSUS RURAL TELEPHONE SERVICE CO.

Citation - 499 U.S. 340 Supreme Court of United states of America

 

FACTS OF THE CASE

In the present case, RURAL TELEPHONE SERVICE COMPANY is certified telephonic service provider operating in Kansas. FIEST PUBLICATION is a publication company which specializes in area wide telephone directories. Unlike a typical phone directory which covers a specific area. Basically Fiest publishes certain directory which is bigger than geographical area. If we look at the Rural telephone Co. They were the sole provider of telephone services in that particular area of Kansas which obtain information of directory quite easily.

However, Fiest just being a publication house lacks independent access to any subscriber information therefore approaches individual telephone service provider companies for information. As 10 out of 11 shared the information such that Fiest could publish it in their respective directory but Rural inc. trying to attract the subscriber in its yellow pages did not. Despite being denied the information of the subscribers in that particular region of Kansas.

Fiest Publications went ahead and used the white pages listing Rural directory without the consent but added additional information such as address which was not present in Rural version.So, due to the presence of 4 fictitious listings that rural had inserted into its directory to detect copying. So, due to this Fiest was sued by Rural inc. for Copyright infringement       

SYNOPSIS OF RULE OF LAW:

A work may be original even thought it closely resembles other works so long as the similarity is fortuitous, not the result of copying. As in the law involved in this case is basically the US Copyright act 1976.

  • Section 101 provides that a copyright is a work formed by the collection and assembling of preexisting materials or of data that are selected, coordinated or arranged in such a way that the resulting work constitutes an original work of authorship
  • Section 102 (a) and (b) as the section basically deals with that in no case does copyright protection has been related to a process, system, method of operation concept, principle or discovery regardless of the form in which the text has been described in such work

 

ISSUES:

  1. Are the names, addresses and phone numbers in a telephone directory able to be copyrighted ?
  2. Whether the copyright in Rural's directory protects the name towns and telephone numbers that were protected by Fiest?

 

DECISION OF THE COURT

No. In a 9-0 opinion delivered by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the Court held that the names, towns, and telephone numbers copied by Feist were not original to Rural and therefore were not protected by the copyright in Rural's combined white and yellow pages directory.

The Court reasoned that Rural's white pages did not satisfy the minimum constitutional standards for copyright protection because the information they contained lacked the requisite originality, as Rural had not selected, coordinated, or arranged the uncopyrightable facts in any original way. "Because Rural's white pages lack the requisite originality, Feist's use of the listings cannot constitute infringement," wrote Justice O'Connor.

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ANALYSIS OF THE CASE

  • As in the case it has been held that facts cannot be copyrighted however we see that compilations of that particular facts can be copyrighted basically under copyright act if an individual wants protection that 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. As a work may be original even though it closely resembles other work so long as being the similarity is fortuitous not the result of copying.
  • Facts are not original Basically the first person who find certain fact or report doesn’t mean that he has not created that fact the particular individual just merely discovered it’s existence Facts may not be copyrighted and are part of the public domain available to every person
  • As factual compilations may possess the requisite originality. So, it depends upon the author that what he can choose or not and how to arrange the collected date so they can be effectively used by the readers . Thus,if we talk about a directory that basically didn’t no written expression that could be protected, only facts meets the constitutional minimum for copyright protection if hat written content contains any sought of original content or arrangement. The copyright on a factual compilation is limited to formatting. The copyright does not extend to the facts themselves.
  • As it were held in the judgement of the case there sere certain elements that would be considered important elements must be proven to ensure the copyright infringement:
  1. Ownership of valid copyright and copying of constituent elements of the work that were original if we look at the first element because there were some sought of forward text
  2. As to second element there were certain content in that directory which cannot be copyrighted As there has not any kind of originality in that text.

 

So, it can be termed through the particular analysis that there cannot be any kind of copyright infringement in that text that has been made otherwise there would copyright infringement in every single paper being a newspaper or another book and that particular person would be guilty of piracy. 

 

BY- DEEPANKER CHUGH