Is yellow pages copyrighted material?

[ichsie]

Well I think it's just straight facts that cannot be copyrighted?

[jbinbpt]

According to their Terms and Conditions [yellowpages.com] No.

[Lord Majestic]

Facts can't be copyrighted however (in the UK at least) a unique arrangement of facts can create a database right - you can't just copy it over. Yellow pages is a very good example of such database right, not sure about US laws though but something like this ought to exist.

[Beagle]

Yellow pages have more reason for copyright protection than purely alphabetical white pages, because someone had to come up with the system of categories, headings, "see...", etc. -- and if you've ever tried looking something up in more than one brand of yellow pages, you know some of those systems are better than others! That would go along with the organized database idea. (Please don't take that as an okay to copy the white pages - I have no idea about the legality of that.)

Also - I don't know if this point has any bearing on the question, but you generally have to pay for a yellow pages' listing. So you'd be piggybacking on someone else's marketing efforts.

[edited by: Beagle at 12:55 pm (utc) on July 23, 2008]

[LifeinAsia]

Also - I don't know if this point has any bearing on the question, but you generally have to pay for a yellow pages' listing. So you'd be piggybacking on someone else's marketing efforts.

Not just marketing- a LOT of effort goes into getting/verifying/updating yellow pages data, which is why good (and frequently updated) data is so expensive.

Every site I have seen clearly states that you may not reproduce the data. And there are basically only 3 ways to get the data:
1) Buy it from a legit source.
2) Scrape it illegally from other sites.
3) Use your own resources to go door to door collecting the information (or have all the businesses give their information to you).

[eventus]

Regarding the White Pages wuestions do a search for Feist vs Rural Telephone Co.

Facts are in the public domain... The Associated Press (many say wrongfully) disagrees that facts are not protected btw.. maybe the AP needs to buy a clue

[anallawalla]

Most large databases are seeded with fake entries to trap those who copy content.