Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-88-01679/USCOURTS-ca10-88-01679-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Feist Publications, Inc.
Appellant
Rural Telephone Service Company, Inc.
Appellee

Document Text:

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

FILED 

Uoited States Court of Appeals 

Tertth Ci-:o;I:: 

MAR .. 8 1990 

RURAL TELEPHONE SERVICE ) 

&OBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk COMPANY, INC. I 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

v. 

FEIST PUBLICATIONS, INC. I 

Defendant-Appellant. 

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No. 88-1679 

(D.C. No. 83-4086) 

( D. Kan.) 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

Before TACHA and EBEL, Circuit Judges, and KANE, District Judge.** 

This appeal is from an order of the district court awarding 

summary judgment in favor of plaintiff Rural Telephone Service 

Company, Inc. (Rural), finding that defendant Feist Publications, 

Inc. (Feist) violated the federal copyright laws by copying the 

white pages of Rural's 1982-83 telephone directory. After a Rule 

54(b) certification by the district court on the copyright 

infringement issue, defendant appeals alleging that the district 

court erred in finding that Feist's activities in compiling the 

independent telephone directory constituted a copyright 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

except for purposes of establishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36.3. 

** The Honorable John L. Kane, Jr., District Judge, United 

States District Court for the District of Colorado, sitting by 

designation. 

Appellate Case: 88-1679 Document: 01019966072 Date Filed: 03/08/1990 Page: 1 
. , 

infringement and in awarding attorneys' fees and damages. We 

affirm. 

As a part of its telephone service to its cooperative members 

in Northwest Kansas, Rural compiles, publishes and distributes an 

annual telephone directory covering its telephone service area. 

The 1982-83 Rural telephone directory was marked with an 

appropriate copyright notice identifying Rural as the copyright 

proprietor and indicating the year of publication. Feist 

publishes and distributes a northwest area-wide telephone 

directory which covers some of the same geographical areas as 

Rural's directory. The undisputed facts show that Feist was 

unable to purchase the Rural white page listings so Feist took the 

Rural telephone directory, edited it, and used only the listings 

that covered its area of service. Those listings were sorted by 

towns and alphabetized. The lists were then sent to verifiers in 

each of the communities to verify the telephone numbers and 

addresses. Feist's directory contained the information derived in 

this way. The district court relied on the substantial precedent 

which holds that a telephone directory is a compilation 

copyrightable under the United States copyright laws. ~, 

United Tel. Co.~ Johnson Publishing Co., 855 F.2d 604, 607-08 

(8th Cir. 1988); Hutchinson Tele. Co.~ Fronteer Directory Co., 

770 F.2d 128, 132 (8th Cir. 1985); Southern Bell Tele.~ Tele. Co. 

v. Associated Tele. Directory Publishers, 756 F.2d 801, 809-10 

(11th Cir. 1985); Southern Bell Tele. Co. v. Nationwide Indep. 

Directory Serv., Inc., 371 F. Supp. 900, 905 (W.D. Ark. 1974). 

The district court found that the use of Rural's materials by 

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Appellate Case: 88-1679 Document: 01019966072 Date Filed: 03/08/1990 Page: 2 
Feist was neither de minimis, ~, Warner Bros. Inc.~ American 

Broadcasting Cos., Inc., 720 F.2d 231, 242 (2d Cir. 1983) (de 

minimis rule allows copying of small and usually insignificant 

portion of copyrighted work), nor "fair use" and therefore 

constituted an infringement of the copyright laws,~, Rockford 

Map Publishers, Inc.~ Directory Serv. Co., 768 F.2d 145, 149-50 

(7th Cir. 1985) (copying map compilation), cert. denied, 476 U.S. 

1061 (1986); Central Tele. Co.~ Johnson Publishing Co., 526 F. 

Supp. 838, 843 (D. Colo. 1981) (copying telephone directory). We 

find no error in these determinations of the district court. We 

further agree with the district court that allegations of 

antitrust violations do not constitute defenses to a claim of 

copyright infringement. ~, Harms, Inc.~ Sansom House 

Enters., 162 F. Supp. 129, 135 (E.D. Pa. 1958), aff'd sub nom. on 

other grounds, Leo Feist, Inc.~ Lew Tandler Tavern, Inc., 267 

F.2d 494 (3d Cir. 1959); Buck~ Cecere, 45 F. Supp. 441, 441-42 

(W.D.N.Y. 1942); Buck~ Newsreel, Inc., 25 F. Supp. 787, 789 (D. 

Mass. 1938). Contra M. Witmark ~ Sons v. Jensen, 80 F. Supp. 843, 

850 (D. Minn. 1948), appeal dismissed, 177 F.2d 515 (8th Cir. 

1949). Statutory damages and attorneys' fees are within the 

discretion of the district court. ~, Hartman v. Hallmark 

Cards, Inc., 833 F.2d 117, 122 (8th Cir. 1987) (copyright 

attorneys' fees award reviewed under abuse of discretion 

standard); Harris~ Emus Records Corp., 734 F.2d 1329, 1335 (9th 

Cir. 1984) (copyright statutory damages award reviewed under abuse 

of discretion standard). Under the circumstances of this case, we 

find no abuse of discretion in the award of statutory damages of 

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Appellate Case: 88-1679 Document: 01019966072 Date Filed: 03/08/1990 Page: 3 
$6,000 and attorneys' fees. We AFFIRM for substantially the 

reasons given by the district court. 

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ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

Deanell Reece Tacha 

Circuit Judge 

Appellate Case: 88-1679 Document: 01019966072 Date Filed: 03/08/1990 Page: 4