Let us say that someone compiles all of the baptism records of a certain church from the first record through1900. They publish it and are hoping to receive profits from the sales. Feist vs Rural was a US Supreme Court case in 1991which made it clear that the facts of a compilation cannot be copyrighted. I interpret that overall decision to mean that I can publish the same baptism records if I want to compete for sales with the other compiler (but see last paragraph below). I also believe that I could probably scan all of the other compiler's pages into my computer, use an OCR program to convert them to text, then publish them in the same chronological order and format that the compiler used, which was nothing but the same arrangement as was in the church register or in the same arrangement that is used by many other compilers (nothing original). I could probably publish these either in book form or on the internet, thus greatly reducing the sales and perhaps insuring that the compiler will perhaps not even recover the publication costs. This is not fair to the compiler who spent so much time ("sweat of the brow") and invested money in the project. If it happened very often, people would be discouraged from tackling such a project for profit. And it is these people that often have the highest standards for accuracy. We will get fewer transcribed compilations, and often of a lower standard. Is there any legal protection for these compilers? I had read once or twice that people could copy part of a book and republish it as long as the author/compiler's sales were not impacted negatively. Does that apply here? It may have been an issue of fair use. BUT, fair use would only apply to copyrighted compilations. BUT, the compiler could get a valid copyright for a book that was a compilation by simply writing an introduction. The copyright wouldn't protect the facts (baptism records) from being copied, but maybe a copyright for the book would prevent others from doing anything to reduce their sales. Any comments? Cliff

The only time that there is protection is if the work meets the requirements for originality for a compilation: 1.the collection and assembly of pre-existing material, facts, or data; 2.the selection, coordination, or arrangement of those materials; and 3.the creation, by virtue of the particular selection, coordination, or arrangement of an ORIGINAL work of authorship. "The copyright in a compilation or derivative work extends only to the material contributed by the author of such work, as distinguished from the preexisting material employed in the work, and does not imply any exclusive right in the preexisting material." (17 USC Sec. 103) Mike At 11:30 PM 11/2/00 -0500, Cliff Lamere wrote: >Is there any legal protection for these compilers? I had read once or >twice that people could copy part of a book and republish it as long as >the author/compiler's sales were not impacted negatively. Does that apply >here? It may have been an issue of fair use. BUT, fair use would only >apply to copyrighted compilations. BUT, the compiler could get a valid >copyright for a book that was a compilation by simply writing an >introduction. The copyright wouldn't protect the facts (baptism records) >from being copied, but maybe a copyright for the book would prevent others >from doing anything to reduce their sales. Any comments?