Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co.
The Court ruled that a telephone company's alphabetical white-pages listings were not protected by copyright, because merely gathering and alphabetizing subscriber names and numbers involves no creative spark. A rival publisher who copied those listings for its own area-wide directory did not infringe any copyright.
The decision rejected the long-used 'sweat of the brow' theory, which had let compilers claim copyright simply for the effort of gathering facts, and made clear that copyright protects only original creativity, not hard work, in collections of facts.
“This inevitably means that the copyright in a factual compilation is thin.”
The Court explains that copyright protection for collections of facts is narrow.
How it got here: A federal trial court granted summary judgment for Rural, the Tenth Circuit affirmed without opinion, and Feist asked the Supreme Court to review the case.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Rural Telephone Service, a monopoly phone provider in rural Kansas, was required by state regulation to publish an annual white-pages directory of its subscribers. Feist Publications, which produced larger area-wide directories, asked to license Rural's listings but was refused. Feist copied thousands of the listings anyway to fill gaps in its own directory, prompting Rural to sue for copyright infringement.
The question before the Court
Could a phone company's copyright over its white-pages directory stop a rival publisher from copying the plain listings of names, towns, and phone numbers?
Why it matters
Publishers, database companies, and anyone who compiles directories, listings, or other factual collections can freely copy the raw facts from a competitor's work, so long as they don't copy a genuinely creative selection or arrangement. This narrowed what compilers of facts—like phone books, business directories, or data sets—can control through copyright, encouraging competition in repackaging public information.
What changes now
The ruling is a final decision on the merits reversing the lower courts. Rural's infringement claim fails, so Feist may continue using the listings it copied without paying Rural. The decision also guides future disputes over factual compilations nationwide, confirming that copyright protection depends on original selection or arrangement, not the effort spent gathering facts.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide that no directory or factual compilation can ever be copyrighted — only that Rural's plain alphabetical listing lacked the minimal creativity required. Compilations with a genuinely original selection or arrangement of facts can still receive copyright protection limited to that selection or arrangement.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Blackmun
Justice Blackmun agreed with the outcome that Feist's copying did not infringe any valid copyright, but the opinion notes only that he concurred in the judgment without joining the Court's reasoning in full, suggesting he may have reached the same result on different or narrower grounds.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court explained that copyright requires 'originality,' a constitutional minimum meaning a work must be independently created and show at least a modest amount of creativity; facts themselves are discovered, not created, so they can never be original and can never be copyrighted.
- The Court noted that collections of facts (compilations) can still be copyrighted, but only to the extent the compiler's selection, coordination, or arrangement of those facts is itself original — the underlying facts remain free for anyone to copy.
- The Court traced how some lower courts had wrongly protected compilations under a 'sweat of the brow' theory, rewarding the labor of gathering facts rather than any creative selection or arrangement, and found this approach inconsistent with the constitutional originality requirement.
- The Court read the Copyright Act of 1976's definition of 'compilation' and its statement in § 103(b) that copyright in a compilation extends only to the compiler's original contributions, not to the preexisting facts, as confirming that 'sweat of the brow' was never a valid basis for protection.
- Applying this framework, the Court found that Rural's white pages merely listed subscribers alphabetically by surname — an obvious, mechanical arrangement lacking any creative spark — so neither the selection nor the arrangement of the facts was original.
- Because the specific names, towns, and telephone numbers Feist copied were uncopyrightable facts, and Rural's arrangement of them showed no originality, Feist's copying could not amount to infringement of anything protected by copyright.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Baker v. Selden (101 U. S. 99)
Relies on this 1880 case's principle that copyright cannot block others from using the facts or knowledge a work conveys.
Reaffirms Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Sarony (111 U. S. 53)
Reaffirms this case's definition of 'author' as requiring genuine originality, not mere discovery of facts.
Distinguishes International News Service v. Associated Press (248 U. S. 215)
Clarifies that this 1918 decision never actually protected copied facts themselves, unlike the rejected 'sweat of the brow' theory.