The Court then went on to hold that the white page listings in a telephone directory were not entitled to copyright protection because they lacked the requisite originality. See 17 U.S.C. sec. Moreover, Mid America also had to show that Kirk copied constituent elements of the title insurance commitment that are original, and the district court deter- mined that Mid America failed to make such a showing. Thus, the primary issue on appeal is whether the material allegedly copied from Mid America's Title Commitment No. 125266 is sufficiently original to merit copyright pro- tection.
Originality is both a statutory and constitutional require- ment.
Original, as the term is used in copyright, means only that the work was inde- pendently created by the author . . . Mid America acknowledges that individual facts are not copyrightable because they are not independently created by the author and are therefore not original. Thus, any data copied from Mid America's title commitment, such as preexisting factual information regarding the Frankfort property's legal description, taxes, mortgage and other encumbrances, are not copyrightable. Furthermore, the amount of time and effort which Mid America invested in order to gather and report such information is irrele- vant to our inquiry, since originality, and not industry, is the touchstone of copyright protection. Mid America must therefore show that the compilation of facts which Kirk allegedly copied features an original selection or arrangement.