Re: West loses major copyright decision

John Kasdan <kasdan[_at_]columbia.edu> wrote:
>
> John Lederer <johnl[_at_]ibm.net> wrote:
> >
> > The district court for the SDNY has just held that outside of its
> > headnotes West has no copyrightable interest in its federal reporters.
> >
> > A copy of the decision is at:
> >
> > http://www.nylj.com/links/hyperlaw.html
>
> The opinion apparently runs through every element which West claimed
> to be copyrightable. The element which stood out by its absence was
> the citation. Has West given up its claim to copyright in its page
> numbering?
>
> In any case, congratulations to contributor Alan Sugarman for fighting
> (and winning, at least for now) the good fight.

The issue of star pagination was resolved earlier, by summary judgment, in favor of Matthew Bender and Hyperlaw. That decision has been appealed to the Second Circuit where, undoubtedly, this decision will follow.

Daniel R. Guggenheim
<drg[_at_]hle.niigata-u.ac.jp> Received on Wed May 28 1997 - 01:40:55 GMT