Are Bibliographic Citations Facts?

From: John Rosenberg <john[_at_]onliners.com>
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 14:43:01 -0500

Laura Gasaway wrote:
>
> Mark Lemley's indication that West did not claim copyright in
> the citations to their reporters and statutes is interesting, and may
> be an accurate statement from the West v. MDC litigation.
>
> However, now West does claim copyright in such citations....<snip>
>
> My own argument is that even if they were protected at one
> time.... <snip>

Most of the discussion re References and Titles as Facts has been to legal cites, West page numbers, etc. What about bibliographic citations to general publications, of the sort that one can find in Nexis, Dialog, Dow Jones News Retrieval, etc.? Presumably the facts contained in the cites -- author, title, publication, date, pages, etc. -- are, well, facts. Does that mean one could not, post Feist, be prevented from publishing a topical list of citations that were all derived from an online vendor? The vendors' contracts would have something to say about this, but would such a venture now be at least copyright kosher?

cheers,

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John S. Rosenberg 703-533-9292 800-678-9393 703-538-6135 (Fax) Online Resources, Inc. 200 Little Falls St., #G-201, Falls Church, Va. 22046 john[_at_]onliners.com * * * * "We Cover All The Bases..." * * * *

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Received on Thu Feb 22 1996 - 01:25:56 GMT