Are Public Facts and Data Copyrightable?

[Peachesbackwards]

Occasionally, I put together Blog Posts that are Basically Just Rearranged or Expanded Data of Public Facts and information and I'm wondering, not for my blogs, if other websites can claim there information is copyrighted by them and any use of it is considered a copyright violation. Let me be more specific to clarify by giving the following examples:

1. List of Cities with Animal Names.

Lets say I see a website where someone listed 100 names and he writes the information is copyrighted by him and any use of them will be treated as a copyright violation. As far as I'm concerned, correct me if I'm wrong, this is BS as he can't legally copyright public info or a list of public info.

Lets see I see another list with 20 more names not on the lost above. I then decided to combined these to make it a bigger list of names with 120 total of which 100 were from the list above.

I have violated nothing by doing this, correct? And no, I am not going to credit where I found this info because it would just give me hassles from some nutcase who doesn't understand the principle of public domain. I am correct in this legally, right? I should add that I realize if I just put out a list of the guys 100 names without adding any, I'd be technically copying or duplicating his list which I wouldn't do.

Would appreciate if anyone can comment on this.

[Nathan]

You are right that someone can not copyright public facts, but they can copyright the work and effort they put into collecting the facts together.

Think about it this way:

Shouldn't Encyclopedia Britannica have the right to copyright their encyclopedia, which is nothing more than a collection of facts? They are not copyrighting the facts, they are copyrighting their collection of facts, the work they put to gather them together.

The same thing applies with copying a list of facts. You have to put together your own list using your own time and effort. Basically, I think that is where the whole copyrighting of facts issue is coming from.

[Monkeyman09]

"Morality (from the Latin moralitas "manner, character, proper behavior") has three principal meanings.

In its first, descriptive usage, morality means a code of conduct which is held to be authoritative in matters of right and wrong. Morals are created by and define society, philosophy, religion, or individual conscience."

From Wikipedia, don't be a fool, quote your sources! Bad form if you don't link back to someone. If you do link back to someone, they may have more readers then you and you would get more exposure from a lot bigger site (depending if they have linkbacks enabled).

I don't believe everyone is a nutcase, just be polite and kindly remind the person that it is public information. It might be a risk worth taking just so you could learn from the experience. I would rather ask "What if I quoted it and linked back to his site?" and then find out what would happen, instead of just being left at the "What if?" part.

[pcsourcepoint]

I notice for some blogger html/template tutorials posts, that some bloggers link back to where they got their idea/tutorial from. But some don't - which I assume that they may have learnt that tutorial themselves (or not?). This has limited me to post specific template tutorials, as I am not sure if other bloggers should be credited who have done similar tutorials (and if they originated it). But noted by monkeyman09 perhaps a blogger should ask what if I quoted it and linked back to his site...

But then, how far to the "true source" do we have to link back? Consider the numerous blog/web site tutorials for say Microsoft Word/Front page/Blogger. Should Microsoft/Google receive the credited link, rather than anyone else that post specific tutorials?

[Nathan]

The main issue is copying pieces from other sources and then recobbling them as your own. There is nothing wrong with writing you own original tutorial, but if you copy pieces from other sources then it is common net etiquette that you should link back to the original source to give credit where credit is due.

It's what almost any blogger would want other people to do to them, so why not do it yourself?

[Peachesbackwards]

Reason not to do it is very simple-Some blogger might be a nutcase or delusional and start harassing you telling you he didn't give you permission etc. even though you don't need permission and start contacting adsense and reporting non-existence violations, etc. In a world without nutcases of course I would do it but there are too many cukoos around to take the chance.

[Monkeyman09]

"But then, how far to the "true source" do we have to link back?"

Since I report about gadgets and tech news, I link back to the source blog/news article. I then check the linkback from their article for more information I can add to mine, then I do something like via (first article I found) via (article they found). Anything beyond that I doubt anyone would care about unless they really wanted to check it out.

[davidannis]

There was a court case in the U.S. where someone copied a few pages of a phone book, public facts. The court ruled that while the phone numbers were not copyrightable, the compilation was. How much additional data you would need to add to make it your own compilation I don't know, but I doubt it is settled law.