List Pub. Co. v. Keller
| Decision Date | 12 April 1887 |
| Citation | 30 F. 772 |
| Parties | LIST PUB. CO. v. KELLER. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
Wallace MacFarland, for complainant.
Edmund Wetmore, for defendant.
The parties are the proprietors and publishers of rival 'society' directories, which purport to give the names and addresses of those persons in New York City who are supposed to be people of fashion. The complainant asserts that its copyrighted directory, 'The List,' is infringed by the defendant's directory, the 'Social Register,' and has made a motion for a preliminary injunction. The question in the case is whether the defendant, in compiling his directory, has done so by his own original labor, or whether, in order to spare himself time and expense he has copied the names and addresses given in the Social Register from the List. If he has copied any part of the complainant's book, he has infringed the copyright. He has no right to take, for the purposes of a rival publication, the results of the labor and expense incurred by the complainant, and thereby save himself the labor and expense of working out and arriving at these results by some independent road. Morris v. Ashbee, L.R. 7 Eq. 34.
It was held in Kelly v. Morris, L.R.1Eq. 697, where the publication in controversy was a general directory, that the only legitimate use which a subsequent compiler can make of a copyrighted directory already published is for the purpose of verifying the correctness of the results reached by his own independent efforts in obtaining information.
In the latter case of Morris v. Wright, L.R.5Ch.App. 279 it was held that the subsequent compiler can use a directory previously published for the purpose of directing himself to the persons from whom such information is obtained.
No compiler of a book such as directories, guide-books road-books, statistical tables, can acquire, by a copyright a monopoly of the matter published; but the subsequent compiler must investigate for himself from the original sources of information which are open to all. It has been said that, in the case of a road-book, he must count the mile-stones for himself, and in the case of a map of a newly-discovered island he must go through the whole process of triangulation, just as if he had never seen any former map; and, generally, he is not entitled to take one word of the information previously published without independently working out the matter for himself, and the only use he can legitimately make of a previous publication is to verify his own calculations and results when obtained.
It is not necessary to adopt this statement unqualifiedly, but it is safe to say that the compiler of a general directory is not at liberty to copy any part, however small, of a previous directory, to save himself the trouble of collecting the materials from original sources. Otherwise, as the matter of rival publications of this kind is identical, there would be practically no copyright in such a book.
It is not necessary or reasonable to apply so strict a rule to publications like the present. They are designed to provide a catalogue, in convenient form, of the names and addresses of a selected class of eligible persons. T...
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