Intellectual Property Protection of Fact-based Works: Copyright and Its Alternatives

The 1991 US Supreme Court decision in Feist Publications Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co. held that factual matter is not subject to copyright protection because it is not original to the author, thus dramatically rejecting a two-century-old tradition of protecting factual compilations under copyright. The contributors to this book reassess this decision and its implications, particularly for the protection of electronic databases.

The debate over fact-based works has grown still more complicated since Feist with the enactment of worldwide initiatives that extend the protection of databases, such as the European Union’s Database Directive. A number of legal scholars have voiced their opinions on how Congress should react to the Court’s decision and the Database Directive, but none have put forth a viable solution or questioned the debate’s underlying assumptions. The contributors to this insightful book turn their attention to these overlooked aspects, approaching the protection of factual matter from a range of perspectives: policy, historical, comparative, empirical and philosophical.

The range of viewpoints and disciplines represented in this compelling book will be of great interest to students, scholars and lawyers working in the area of intellectual property law.