Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!ucbvax!agate!telecom-request From: kddlab!lkbreth.foretune.co.jp!trebor@uunet.uu.net (Robert J Woodhead) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Supreme Court: White Pages Not Copyrightable Message-ID: Date: 29 Mar 91 08:23:25 GMT Sender: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu Organization: Foretune Co., Ltd. Tokyo Japan Lines: 57 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 11, Issue 251, Message 10 of 11 bill@gauss.eedsp.gatech.edu (Bill Berbenich) writes: > Court Rules Phone Books Unprotected; Justices: Copyright Law Doesn't > Apply [Moderator's Note: I think we are witnessing the end of an era > of accurate, reliable telephone directories from the Bell telcos. > Obviously from this point forward instead of maintaining a detailed > and highly technical directory bureau, all telco needs to do is copy > some other directory and put their name on the cover each year. PAT] I think you are wrong. How do you think a local directory is assembled by the phone company? They have their subscriber's names and addresses on their billing computers; dump the names, addresses and phone numbers into a file, sort them, massage them a little, and send the results to a postscript typsetter; voila, instant white-pages. I'd be shocked if the phone companies did it any other way! Since the telcos have the customers, and assign the numbers, and need to have the details in order to run their businesses, there is no reason for their directories to be innacurate. I do have some qualms about the court decision, however. The phone company does spend money to create the entries in the white pages, and it seems to me that rival directory companies are getting a free ride on the back of Ma Bell. Also, who is going to define what an "original work" is? There are a lot of complicated privacy issues here. It would be nice if it were the case that each subscriber "owned" his telephone number, and had the right to decide how it was distributed. That would force the whole industry to get real when it comes to a wide variety of privacy issues; alas, it will never happen. Robert J. Woodhead, Biar Games / AnimEigo, Incs. trebor@foretune.co.jp [Moderator's Note: Well, the court decision was just another in the series of 'dump on Ma Bell' decisions for which the federal judiciary is well-known. Of course telco spends a great deal of time and money to verify their directories and insure accuracy. Most of the other fly-by-night one shot directory publishers make no attempt to verify anything. They just copy from telco. This can be easily proven as Illinois Bell has done a couple times: IBT puts 'ringers' in their directories; that is, here and there a totally made-up entry which does not exist. This disproves any claims of 'carefully researched and compiled' directories by other publishers. When a competitor's directory comes out (or a new Haines Criss-Cross book) IBT checks it out looking for their 'ringers'. If they find any (ringers), the competitor gets sued for copyright violation. At least they did in the past. I guess now telco gets to do the work for the other publishers for free. If *I* had anything to do with telco directory compilation and distribution, my response to the Supreme Court would be to abolish phone directories entirely. That would wipe out the leeches in the directory-publishing industry overnight and prevent any futher theft of my work, whether the Supreme Court liked it or not. PAT]