Schoolhouse Inc. v. Anderson

• Decision Date: 15 October 2001
• Docket Number: No. 00-3939,00-3939
• Citation: 275 F.3d 726
• Parties: (8th Cir. 2002) SCHOOLHOUSE, INC., APPELLANT, v. JEFF ANDERSON; MARGARET RICHARDSON D/B/A MARKET SOLUTIONS, APPELLEES. Submitted:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 726

275 F.3d 726 (8th Cir. 2002)

SCHOOLHOUSE, INC., APPELLANT, v. JEFF ANDERSON; MARGARET RICHARDSON D/B/A MARKET SOLUTIONS, APPELLEES.

No. 00-3939

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

Submitted: October 15, 2001

Filed: January 4, 2002

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota

Before Wollman, Chief Judge, Lay and Riley, Circuit Judges.

Riley, Circuit Judge.

The parties to this lawsuit publish information about schools in and around Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. The plaintiff, Schoolhouse, Inc. (Schoolhouse), publishes its information in a magazine. The principal defendant, Jeff Anderson, posts his information on an internet website. Schoolhouse alleges that Anderson created his website by copying the selection and the arrangement of topics in Schoolhouse's magazine. The district court¹ granted summary judgment in favor of Anderson, and Schoolhouse appeals. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

Schoolhouse publishes an annual magazine marketed to prospective home buyers in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and the surrounding area. Schoolhouse distributes its magazine through local real estate agents. In addition to articles, the magazine features tables of information on area public and private schools. This appeal involves the table of information on public schools in the 1996 edition of Schoolhouse's magazine.

Schoolhouse's table organizes and reports information by topic. School districts are listed alphabetically in a column at the left-hand side of the table. Topic headings are listed in a row across the top of the table. There are many topics in the Schoolhouse table. Some, such as "Bachelor," "Masters," and "Doctorate" describe the academic degrees attained by staff members. Others, such as "French," "Spanish," and "German," describe particular classes schools may offer. The substantive content of the table is information listed under these topics, for example, the number of staff members with particular degrees and whether a school offers particular courses.

Schoolhouse arranges its topics in various ways. Most broadly, Schoolhouse divides its topics into two categories, "Athletic" and "Characteristic," and places those categories in separate sub-tables. The seventeen "Athletic" topics list all the sports that local schools generally offer. The remaining "Characteristic" topics describe information about students, teachers, classes, school facilities, and school services. Within the Schoolhouse table, "Characteristic" topics are often grouped according to their general subject matter. For example, the topics "French," "Spanish," and "German," along with other course titles, are arranged in the group "Classes Offered."

Jeff Anderson, a Twin Cities real estate agent, also organizes and lists information on local schools. Anderson compiles and publishes his information on an internet website, which he designed with the help of Margaret Richardson. Unlike Schoolhouse, Anderson does not publish information on all area schools in a single table. Instead, Anderson's website provides a list of school districts with links to information on each school. When an internet user clicks on a school district, the website takes the user to a page of information Anderson has compiled exclusively on that district.

The pages of information on Anderson's website do not consist solely of tables. Each page does include a table of information on "School Statistics" - statistics on school population, accreditation, pupil/staff ratio, and pupil/computer ratio at various schools in the district. On the rest of each page, however, topics are broken down into groups and each group of topics is displayed in a separate row. For example, there is a row of information on "Certified Staff," a row on "Classes Offered," and a row of "Miscellaneous" information. "Athletic" information is listed in this same format on the same page as non-athletic data.

Schoolhouse's table and Anderson's website cover many of the same topics. For example, both provide information on the population of school districts and schools, on the availability of services like busing and hot lunch, on staff credentials and certification, on classes offered, and on student test scores. Many of the topics within these general groups - such as whether a school offers a particular foreign language - appear both in the Schoolhouse table and on Anderson's website. Viewed in the light most favorable to Schoolhouse, the 64 topics covered by Anderson's website include 56 of the 76 topics listed in the Schoolhouse table.

Schoolhouse filed this lawsuit alleging copyright infringement, unfair business practices, and unfair competition. The district court granted summary judgment to Anderson on Schoolhouse's copyright infringement claim and dismissed Schoolhouse's state-law claims without prejudice. Schoolhouse now appeals the grant of summary judgment on its copyright infringement claim, arguing that there was a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the two works are substantially similar.

II. DISCUSSION

We review a district court's grant of summary judgment de novo, using the same standards applied by the district court. Iowa Coal Min. Co. v. Monroe County, Iowa, 257 F.3d 846, 852 (8th Cir. 2001). Under Rule 56(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, summary judgment is appropriate if the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, demonstrates that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Id. In a copyright infringement case, where both works are in the record, a trial court has sufficient evidence to enter summary judgment. Nelson v. PRN Prods., Inc., 873 F.2d 1141, 1143 (8th Cir. 1989).

Schoolhouse's table on public schools is a factual compilation. Under the law of copyright, a compilation is a work formed by selecting or arranging pre-existing data "in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship." 17 U.S.C. § 101. Because copyright law protects only expression, and not ideas or facts, copyright protection for a factual compilation is "thin." Feist Publ'ns, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., 499 U.S. 340, 349 (1991). As applied to a factual compilation, copyright law protects an author's original selection and arrangement of facts, but the facts and ideas within the compilation are free for the taking. Id. at 348-49.

Anderson concedes that Schoolhouse has a valid copyright in its table. To establish a violation of its copyright, Schoolhouse must prove that Anderson had access to its table and that there is substantial similarity, both in ideas and expression, between the original elements of its table and Anderson's website. See Hartman v. Hallmark Cards, Inc., 833 F.2d 117, 120 (8th Cir. 1987). Because Anderson concedes that he had access to Schoolhouse's table, the only issue in dispute is whether Anderson's website bears substantial similarity to the original selection and arrangement of topics in Schoolhouse's table.

In Hartman we adopted a two-step analysis for determining whether works are substantially similar. Pursuant to this analysis, we must first analyze the similarity of ideas extrinsically, focusing on any objective similarities in the details of the works. Id. If the ideas behind the works are substantially similar, we must then evaluate similarity of expression intrinsically, according to the response of the ordinary, reasonable person. Id. When applying the second step of the analysis, summary judgment is proper if ordinary, reasonable minds could not find the works substantially similar. Moore v. Columbia Pictures Indus., Inc., 972 F.2d 939, 945-46 (8th Cir. 1992).

The district court found that the works reflected in Schoolhouse's table and in Anderson's website "contain some objective similarities in detail," but the works are "so dissimilar in expression that reasonable minds could not differ as to the absence of substantial similarity." Like the district court, we base our decision on the response that an ordinary, reasonable person would have to the two works.

Because copyright law affords only "thin" protection to factual compilations, a competitor may take "the bulk of the factual material from a pre-existing compilation" without infringing the author's copyright. BellSouth Adver. & Publ'g Corp. v. Donnelly Info. Publ'g, Inc., 999 F.2d 1436, 1445 (11th Cir. 1993) (en banc), (citing Feist, 499 U.S. at 348-50). To paraphrase one commentator, when it comes to factual compilations, after Feist, it takes virtually "extensive verbatim copying" to...