Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service Co.
United States Supreme Court
499 U.S. 340, 111 S. Ct. 1282, 113 L. Ed. 2d 358 (1991)
- Written by Sara Rhee, JD
Facts
Rural Telephone Service Co. (Rural) (plaintiff) published a phonebook that listed the names of its subscribers alphabetically in its white pages. Feist Publications (Feist) (defendant) distributed a similar phonebook although covering a larger geographical area. Rural obtained the information for its white pages directly from its subscribers. Feist, in order to obtain its white-pages listings, contacted Rural and other phone companies offering to pay to use their white-pages listings. Rural denied Feist permission to use its listings because the two companies competed for advertising revenue. However, Feist used Rural’s listings anyway, without Rural’s permission. When Rural found out, it sued Feist for copyright infringement.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (O’Connor J.)
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