Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Washington
Every year I spend hundreds of hours compling information from all over the internet in preperation for the upcoming NFL fantasy season. Within my circle of friends I've become notorious for the amount of research I do. My friends are constantly telling me I should sell my "Draft Guide", but I have reservations because very little information is 100% my own. I read about the "Fair Use" clause, but I don't understand what qualifies.
For example, let's say during one of my searches I find a graph that shows how many points the Top 10 QBs had, and how many the Top 10 RBs had. The NFL statistical nformation itself is public and can be found anywhere. So if I choose to display that chart in my guide am I infringing on a potential copyright?
My understanding is that copyrights protect the way an author expresses the work, but not the factual information covered within.
Is the chart considered the author's "expression"? Since all of the numbers the author uses for their formulas is factual data provided by the NFL for the public domain, can the author copyright that information and prevent others from using it for gain? It seems like charts/graphs themselves can't be copywritten, and the numbers used within the formulas are public domain, so even if I do all the leg work and run the numbers, I'm going to end up with the same exact chart with the same exact numbers. Does this mean I simply can't include a chart that's already been done?
In my case, the information I gather is all free but scattered across the web. I'd like to make money by providing essentially a roadmap to all of the best information, but I don't want to risk any copyright infringements.
1 Answer from Attorneys
There are many works for sale that compile existing statistics that are very useful for their readers. For example, I recently bought a genealogy book in tracking my family history that basically compiles freely available government land maps in a way that would cost me hours of time to do on my own. You can copyright such works, even though the underlying facts are free or widely known.
Regarding use of someone else's chart, you shouldn't copy anything of anyone else's, such things can be copyrighted. When in doubt, recreate the chart yourself. Even if your chart uses the exact same statistics and produces the exact same output, there is a legal difference between that and copying another chart. An example is TV shows. I can legally record all season of a popular show on a DVR. I can play it back whenever I want and watch it over and over. However, if I download a torrent of someone else's DVD rip of the show and play that, I am probably committing copyright infringement, even though I have the exact same content in a legally watchable form. An author gets to say how his/her content can be used, and if they don't say you can copy it and use it in your own commercial work, you should produce your own content.
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