Re: copyrighting of numbers

On 04/26/98, Russell G. Cofano <russc[_at_]cofanogroup.com> wrote:
>
> In previous posts, there was discussion concerning copyright of
> numbers in the ADA case. How about this scenario?
>
> A real estate broker enters into a listing agreement with a home
> seller. The seller, with broker's help, elects to sell the house
> at $200,000. Listing Broker enters the listing in the local
> multiple listing service computer database. Is the list price
> copyrighted (for now, forget about who would own the copyright)?
>
> I am an attorney for the real estate brokerage industry and was
> recently told that the answer to the question was "yes." Makes
> no sense to me, however, as I understand that one cannot obtain a
> copyright of mere facts (the list price), but rather the creative
> expression of those fact can be copyrighted. How can a price in
> the above example be creatively expressed?

How about "the sum of money that is the equivalent of one-fifth of one million units of the United States paper currency bearing a portrait of George Washington on the front and the Great Seal of the United States on the back"?

No matter how creatively it can be expressed, copyright would protect only the original expression itself. It would not prevent anyone from converting the original expression into its numerical equivalent: $200,000. That is indeed a fact that cannot be protected by copyright. The entire database may be subject to copyright IF it is an original selection, coordination or arrangement of data; but any such copyright could not be used to prevent anyone from copying or disclosing the price of any particular listing.

Tyler T. Ochoa
Associate Professor
Whittier Law School
tochoa[_at_]law.whittier.edu Received on Tue Apr 28 1998 - 02:12:38 GMT