| O'Connor's Copyright Legacy
Dames, K. Matthew
Information Today, Apr2006, v23, #4, pp20-21
In a landmark decision (Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone
Services) on intellectual property, the Supreme Court Justice Sandra
O’Connor and her colleagues ruled in 1991 that the replication of
public information, as found in telephone directories, constitutes
no violation of copyrights. “O'Connor explained that current copyright
law emphasized originality above all else, and that Rural's compilation
of names, addresses, and phone numbers did not meet the statutory
standards of originality. […] But database protection legislation
is not a dead issue given the investment eBay, the National Association
of Realtors, Google, and others put into creating, maintaining,
and updating their compilations of original and factual material.
To this end, O'Connor's legacy--through Feist-will continue to have
a prominent place in the domestic policy debate.” . Matthew
Dames, doctorate of jurisprudence, holds an M.L.S. and is the executive
editor of CopyCense, an online publication that covers the intersection
of business, law, and technology. He also is an adjunct professor
at Syracuse University's School of Information Studies.
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