Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Florida

Question about copyrights - Will pay.

I have a question about copyrights.

There is a person who has created a website called www.routingnumbers.org. This website is a database of bank routing numbers. The way he has created this site is by every night taking a list of bank routing numbers from the Federal Reserve's website at www.fededirectory.frb.org/download.cfm, and putting that data into his own website.

In the Federal Reserves Legal Notices section, at the bottom of their website, states that:

''Users may not reproduce, modify, publish, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, create derivative works from or in any way exploit any of the content, in whole or in part....''

Therefore it seems that his actions of taking the data and republishing it is a copyright violation and illegal. I would like to be advised if that is correct.

I am willing to pay for advice. Please tell me how much I should pay you for your advice.


Asked on 7/01/09, 10:27 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Sarah Grosse Sarah Grosse, Esquire

Re: Question about copyrights - Will pay.

General advice, information, and pointers are free here.

Raw data is not protectable by copyright. The legal notice you reference states that one may not reproduce, modify, publish... etc. COPYRIGHTED material. Not the data itself.

From the facts you have given, republishing the data is not a copyright violation or illegal. Additional facts could alter that opinion, and only an attorney who knows all the facts can give you complete legal advice.

Hope that helps.

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Answered on 7/02/09, 1:06 pm


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