Re: Comment on Feist

Thought about maps... David Crosby points out the copyrightability of maps and how that plays into _Feist_.

Firstly, the copyrightable elements of maps are the selection arrangement and creative depiction of the underlying facts. One need only open a few different maps to realize that there are hundreds of different variations of even the basic USA Map. I have one on my wall at home that is incredibly fanciful with clever depictions of states based on their claim to fame and another from National Geographic that painstakingly lays out the state boundaries and capitals and selected major cities, etc.

These choices make the map as an overall work copyrightable but that copyright would not protect against someone creating a listing of mountain heights from your painstaking work because despite the fact that you used selection and arrangement to decide to show mountain heights, the underlying fact -- mountain's height -- can not be protected.

But, by the same token, if someone else makes a fanciful map copying the one I have but redraws the same images in their own style, that would likely be an infringing derivative work.

The difficulty comes when someone is tracing the National Geographic USA Map which is more factual. I think _Feist_ does create a hurdle here that works against people like National Geographic, but perhaps it is a useful hurdle in the sense that it prevents an organization like the Phone Company from locking up for 100 years the protection in its customer's names and numbers trivially arranged. Or an organization like National Geographic from locking up an accurate 1:X scale Y projection map of the USA which corresponds nicely to the common view that everyone is used to seeing of the USA.

Also, I think it may be useful to remember that at our founding copyright ran for much shorter periods, 14+14. A shorter period of protection -- 1 year for phonebooks -- might have served everybody's purposes better than the sweeping Feist decision. The shorter durations might also explain the willingness to extend copyright to maps at the start of our nation since inspite of the strong protections, the works would soon come into the "public domain."

-Erik

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E. L. Oliver                    | Friends help you move.  Real friends
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