BigDave - 2:12 am on Jul 9, 2008 (gmt 0)

In the United States, the facts are not protected by copyright, though as others have suggested, the presentation of those facts might be protected.

An example of this is a list of telephone numbers, such as a directory, and what sort of creativity might have gone into that list.

An alphabetical list of phone numbers by the last name of the person is not protected according to the courts, because that is pretty much a standard way to list things in the english speaking world.

A listing by category, when you create the categories, can be protected in its expression. You can feel free to extract and use the "facts" from that directory, but it would but playing with fire to copy the directory structure. You are probably safe to copy the white pages, but they yellow pages would be risky.