Webbots, Spiders, and Screen Scrapers - Michael Schrenk [119]
If you don't need to register a copyright, why do people still do it? People file for specific copyrights to strengthen their ability to defend their rights in court. If you are interested in registering a copyright for a website, the US Copyright Office has a special publication for you.[83]
Assume "All Rights Reserved"
If you hold (or claim to hold) a copyright, you don't need to explicitly add the phrase all rights reserved to the copyright notice. For example, if a movie script does not indicate that all rights are reserved, you are not free to assume that you can legally produce an online cartoon based on the movie. Similarly, if a web page doesn't explicitly state that the site owner reserves all rights, don't assume that a webbot can legally use the site's images in an unrelated project. The habit of stating all rights reserved in a copyright notice stems from old intellectual property treaties that required it. If a work is unmarked, assume that all rights are reserved.
You Cannot Copyright a Fact
The US Copyright Office website explains that copyright protects the way one expresses oneself and that no one has exclusive rights to facts, as stated below:
Copyright protects the particular way an author has expressed himself; it does not extend to any ideas, systems, or factual information conveyed in the work.[84]
How would you interpret this? You might conclude that someone cannot copy the manner or style in which someone else publishes facts, but that the facts themselves are not copyrightable. What happens if a business announces on its website that it has 83 employees? Does the head count for that company become a fact that is not protected by copyright laws? What if the website also lists prices, phone numbers, addresses, or historic dates?
You might be safe if you write a webbot that only collects pure facts.[85] But that doesn't prevent someone else from having a differing opinion and challenging you in court.
You Can Copyright a Collection of Facts if Presented Creatively
In the previous excerpt from the US Copyright Office website, we learned that copyright law protects the "particular way" in which someone expresses him or herself and that facts themselves are not protected by copyright. One way to think of this is that while you cannot copyright a fact, you might be able to copyright a collection of facts—if they are presented creatively. For example, a phone company cannot copyright a phone number, but it can copyright an entire phone directory website, if the phone numbers are presented in an original and creative way.
It appears that courts are serious when they say copyright only applies to collections of facts when they are presented in new and creative ways. For example, in one case a phone company republished the names and phone numbers (subscriber information) from another phone company's directory.[86] A dispute over intellectual property rights erupted between the two companies, and the case went to court. The fact that the original phone book contained phone numbers from a selected area and listed them in alphabetical order was not enough creativity to secure copyright protection. The judge ruled that the original phone directory lacked originality and was not protected by copyright law—even though the publication had a registered copyright. If nothing else, this indicates that intellectual property law is open to interpretation and that individuals' interpretations of the law are less important than court decisions.
You Can Use Some Material Under Fair Use Laws
United States copyright law also allows for fair use, a set of exclusions from copyright for material used within certain limits. The scope of what falls into the fair use category is largely dependent on the following:
Nature of the copyrighted material