Share
A federal court has considered whether the names and addresses of members in an association's membership directory are entitled to copyright protection under federal law.
The American Massage Therapy Association ("Association") has a membership directory ("Directory") that it distributes to its members. The Directory lists member names geographically and by membership category. The Directory also contains a mission statement, code of ethics, a list of goals, and a staff directory. The geographical portion of the directory lists the member's name, address, telephone number, membership category, and type of therapy performed. The membership category section lists each member by one of six membership categories, and follows each entry with the member's name, type of therapist, and the reference page for contact information in the geographical listing section.
The Directory also contained a use restriction, which stated that the Directory was intended solely for use by Association members, was not intended to be used as a mailing list, and could not be copied without the permission of the Association. The Association registered its copyright for the 1999 Directory with the United States Copyright Office.
The Maxwell Petersen Associates, Inc. ("Publisher") is a marketing and publishing company that publishes a magazine named Massage Today. One of the Publisher's employees was responsible for creating a mailing list of massage therapists, and so she obtained a copy of the 1999 Directory to assist her in this task. She then went through the 1999 Directory, and added to a database the name and address of any massage therapist who was not currently on the Publisher's mailing list, which came to a total of 17,617 names and addresses. Not only did the Publisher use the mailing list to promote its magazine, it also sold and rented its mailing list.
When the Association learned of the Publisher's use of the 1999 Directory in preparing its mailing list, it filed a lawsuit against the Publisher. Following the trial court's dismissal of some of the Association's allegations, the remaining allegations centered on the alleged copyright infringement by the Publisher for its copying of names and addresses from the Directory. Both parties filed motions with the trial court seeking judgment in their favor.
The United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois, ruled that the Publisher's copying of names and addresses did not constitute copyright infringement. The parties agreed that the Association's copyright on the entire 1999 Directory was valid. While raw data like names and addresses are not, standing alone, entitled to copyright protection, a compilation of this data (like an MLS) arranged in a creative and original fashion can receive copyright protection. To learn more about the copyright protections afforded an MLS and how to register your MLS database, click here. Since the arrangement of information in the Directory was more than simply a recital of names addresses, both parties agreed that the entire Directory was entitled to copyright protection.
The Publisher argued that the copying of the name and addresses from the Directory did not constitute copyright infringement because the protections of the copyright laws did not extend to that information. The court agreed with the Publisher, finding that the data used in a compilation does not become "original" simply because it is arranged in an original fashion. Since the names and addresses found in the Directory were not entitled to copyright protection standing alone, the court ruled that the Publisher did not commit copyright infringement by copying the names and addresses from the Directory. The court found support for its conclusion in the Supreme Court decision in Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Company, Inc., 499 U.S. 340 (1991), which held that copying names and addresses from a telephone book did not constitute copyright infringement. Click here to read a summary of that decision. Thus, the court ruled in favor of the Publisher on the copyright infringement allegations and judgment was entered in favor of the Publisher.
Am. Massage Therapy Ass'n v. Maxwell Petersen Assoc., Inc., 209 F. Supp. 2d 941 (N.D. Ill. 2002).