Monopolizing the Law: The Scope of Copyright Protection for Law Reports and Statutory Compilations
96 Pages Posted: 10 May 2020 Last revised: 4 Jun 2020
Date Written: May 5, 1988
Abstract
West Publishing v. Mead Central Data was wrongly decided by the Eighth Circuit, as measured by the Copyright Clause of the Constitution, the Copyright Act of 1976 and, importantly, prior Supreme Court precedents. This article chronicles those shortcomings. In the litigation between West Publishing Company and Mead Data Central, Inc., the court was tasked with balancing the copyright protection against unfair competition accorded an author’s work with the benefit to the public of having free access to the law. Mead had made available to the public, via LEXIS, its new online legal research service, texts of decisions contained in the volumes of West’s National Reporter system. In the process, Mead had referenced, through star paginations, the placement of decisions in West’s volumes. West claimed that Mead’s star pagination references infringed what West claimed to be the copyrighted arrangement of cases in its volumes. The Eighth Circuit determined that West held the copyright protection it asserteded.
There had been four earlier decisions by the Supreme Court on the copyrightability of judicial reports: Wheaton v. Peters, Banks v. Manchester, Callaghan v. Myers, and Banks Law Publishing v. Lawyers’ Co-operative Publishing. All of them weighed against the Eighth Circuit’s decision. The Copyright Act of 1976 protects only “original work[s] of authorship” and precludes copyright protection for trivial elements of a work-product containing the law, such as page numbers in judicial opinions and section numbers in statutory compilations. Overarching all of these considerations, the Copyright Clause emphasizes the three doctrinal imperatives of copyright: to promote learning, to secure the author’s right to profit, and to enhance the public domain. West Publishing eviscerate each of these imperatives.
West v. MDC involves the intersection of copyrights for works embodied in old and new communications technologies, making the claim novel both factually and legally. The case is not the first, nor will it be the last, to sacrifice the public’s good in favor of private interests, in the process making bad law. Although West Publishing is wrongly decided, the case remains precedent despite its deficiencies and threatens to damage the integrity of copyright law.
Keywords: Copyright, Copyright Clause, Copyright Act of 1976, West Publishing v. Mead Data Central, Wheaton v. Peters, Banks v. Manchester, Callaghan v. Myers, Banks Law Publishing v. Lawyers’ Co-operative Publishing, Georgia v. Public.Reseource.Org
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