Legal Question in Intellectual Property in California

Index Copyright

According to the U.S. Copyright Office website, ''Works consisting entirely of information that is common property and containing no original authorship (for example: standard calendars, height and weight charts, tape measures and rulers, and lists or tables taken from public documents or other common sources)'' are not copyrightable.

But, what if you created a unique index of facts? For example, if I collected the names and dates of marriage notices in a newspaper and put them in an index. The index seems to qualify as original but not the information. Is the index copyrightable?


Asked on 8/29/05, 5:14 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Christopher M. Brainard, Esq. C. M. Brainard & Associates - (310) 266-4115

Re: Index Copyright

That is a pretty general question. It would depend on what the final product looked like. Is there anything original and/or novel about in what you have created? You can't appropriate the information in the almanac for example. I bet the research would say that you can't appropriate an index per se. However, to the extent it is original expression, e.g., Webster's Dictionary, it is your expression and in theory protected in some limited way. Again, pretty general question.

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Answered on 8/29/05, 5:32 pm


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