Legal Question in Technology Law in Pennsylvania

copyright infringement

Hello

In April 1998 I did a Photo Cd with Picture of my county along with 4 years of Death indexes on it. I copyrighted this material and started selling them. On March 30 of this year someone copy & pasted all the death indexes I did to a website list server. They mentioned it coming from the CD I did but felt it was not a violation of the copyright act since it was public material. It is true it is in public domain however, I researched, typed, and organized this material myself, and she copied it word for word, Including an error I put in there on purpose. What should I do to have them remove them material from web and refrain from reposting it in the future? I don't mind someone copying and pasting parts of it but to copy & paste each and every database from my CD is wrong. Not many will buy this CD now she has put the information for free on the net.

I have already try emailing her and she feels she did nothing wrong. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.


Asked on 4/01/02, 3:35 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Lawrence Graves Coolidge & Graves PLLC

Re: copyright infringement

Sad to say, you obtain no copyright for "sweat-of-the-brow" in the wake of a US Supreme Court case a few years ago. The data will not support a copyright, and if the organization of the data is not itself sufficiently original and creative to qualify for copyright protection, you have no remedy. In the case just mentioned, the Supreme Court held that a white-pages telephone directory could not be the subject matter of copyright because alphabetical order was insufficiently creative; likewise, in your case, organization by name and date won't suffice.

Best wishes,

LDWG

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Answered on 4/01/02, 6:08 pm


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