Ever feel like you’ve done all the heavy lifting, only for someone else to swoop in and reap the rewards? That’s basically the heart of the 1991 Supreme Court battle Feist Publications v Rural Telephone Service. It’s the case that killed the idea that "sweating for it" gives you a copyright. Honestly, if you're in the business of data, SEO, or even just building a contact list, this is the one legal precedent you actually need to understand.
The Case of the Copied White Pages
So, here’s the setup. Rural Telephone Service Company was a small utility in northwest Kansas. They had a monopoly on phone service there, which meant they were legally required to publish a white pages directory every year. They did the work. They grabbed the names, towns, and numbers of their subscribers and slapped them into an alphabetical list.
Then came Feist Publications.
Feist wasn't a phone company; they were a publishing house that made "area-wide" directories. They wanted to cover a huge 15-county area, which included Rural's tiny patch of turf. Feist tried to license the data from Rural. Most other companies said sure, take the listings. But Rural said no. They wanted to keep their yellow pages advertising monopoly to themselves.
Feist didn't care. They used Rural's directory anyway.
📖 Related: PDI Stock Price Today: What Most People Get Wrong About This 14% Yield
They took about 4,000 listings from Rural's book. They even caught Rural's "seed" entries—fake names planted specifically to catch copycats. Rural sued, thinking they had an open-and-shut case of copyright infringement. They'd done the work, right? The lower courts agreed. They basically said, "Rural spent money and time on this, so you can't just take it."
But the Supreme Court had a different vibe.
The Death of Sweat of the Brow
Before Feist Publications v Rural Telephone Service, many courts followed something called the "sweat of the brow" doctrine. It’s exactly what it sounds like. If you worked hard to compile a bunch of facts, the law protected your labor. It felt fair. It felt American.
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, writing for a unanimous Court, basically told everyone they were wrong.
👉 See also: Getting a Mortgage on a 300k Home Without Overpaying
She pointed out that copyright isn't a reward for being a hard worker. It’s an incentive for being creative. The "sine qua non" of copyright—that's fancy lawyer talk for "the essential thing"—is originality.
Facts are Free
Here’s the kicker: Facts aren't original. No one "creates" a phone number or a name. They just exist. Because Rural didn't invent the facts, they couldn't own them.
"Common sense tells us that 100 uncopyrightable facts do not magically change their status when gathered together in one place."
O’Connor was brutal about it. She said Rural’s directory wasn’t just unoriginal—it was "devoid of even the slightest trace of creativity." Alphabetical order? That’s the most obvious way to organize a phone book. It’s mechanical. It’s routine. It doesn't count as an "original work of authorship."
✨ Don't miss: Class A Berkshire Hathaway Stock Price: Why $740,000 Is Only Half the Story
Why This Matters in 2026
You might think a 35-year-old case about paper phone books is ancient history. You'd be wrong. In the age of AI scraping and massive data harvesting, Feist is more relevant than ever.
If you scrape a database of real estate prices or sports stats today, you're standing on the shoulders of Feist. If that database is just a raw dump of facts arranged in a standard way, it might not be protected by copyright at all. This is why companies like Zillow or LinkedIn fight so hard to protect their data through Terms of Service (TOS) and "gatekeeping" rather than just relying on copyright law. They know the law won't protect the facts themselves.
The Originality Loophole
Does this mean all compilations are fair game? No.
You can still copyright a compilation if you use "creative selection and arrangement." If you make a list of the "100 Coolest Bars in Brooklyn," that's copyrightable. Why? Because you selected them based on your judgment. You didn't just list every bar in alphabetical order. The "selection" is the creative part.
Actionable Insights for Data Creators
If you’re building a database or a digital product today, you need to bake in "Feist-proof" protection. Relying on the fact that you spent $50,000 on data entry won't save you in court.
- Add Expressive Content: Don't just list facts. Add original descriptions, reviews, or analysis. These are clearly "original works of authorship."
- Focus on Unique Selection: If your data set is "comprehensive," it might actually be less protected because there's no "selection" involved. A curated, opinionated list is much harder to legally scrape.
- Use Contracts, Not Just Copyright: Since copyright is weak on facts, use robust Terms of Service. Most modern data battles are won on "breach of contract" or "computer fraud" claims, not copyright infringement.
- Coordinate Your Arrangement: If you have a truly unique, non-obvious way of displaying data that isn't just a standard grid or list, you might find some protection there.
Feist Publications v Rural Telephone Service reminds us that the law cares about the "spark," not the "sweat." If you want to own what you build, make sure there’s a little bit of soul in the data.