Opinion ID: 2974224
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: LawMode’s selection of forms

Text: While LawMode’s selection of forms is sufficiently creative to warrant copyright protection, LawMode’s and Lexis’s selections are not similar enough to constitute copying. The two elements for copyright infringement are: (1) ownership of a valid copyright, and (2) copying of that expression. See Stromback v. New Line Cinema, 384 F.3d 283, 293 (6th Cir. 2004). The first element is met,1 but the second is not. Lexis did not copy any “protectable” elements of LawMode’s compilation. Id. at 294 (holding that the substantial similarity inquiry requires the court to look at protectable elements of the plaintiff’s work and determine whether the allegedly infringing work is “substantially similar” to the protectable elements). This conclusion is compelled by the differences between LawMode’s and Lexis’s compilations. The differences show that Lexis used sufficient judgment and creativity to compel a reasonable fact finder to conclude that one compilation is not a copy of the other. Our conclusion in this regard is supported by two related considerations. First, Lexis did not include a sufficiently large percentage of the same forms to permit a finding of copying. Second, nonquantitative aspects of the two compilations support the conclusion that Lexis created a new work rather than a copy of LawMode’s. The percentage of forms in LawMode’s compilation that may be found in Lexis’s compilation is not particularly high. LawMode asserts that its compilation contains 576 forms and Lexis’s 2002 compilation contains 406 forms. According to LawMode, 350 of the forms in the Lexis compilation also appeared in LawMode’s compilation. Thus, Lexis’s compilation included 61%, or 350 out of 576, of LawMode’s form selection.2 In Feist the Supreme Court indicated that “notwithstanding a valid copyright, a subsequent compiler remains free to use the facts contained in an author’s publication to aid in preparing a competing work, so long as the competing work does not feature the same selection and arrangement.” Feist, 499 U.S. at 349 (emphasis added). Subsequent cases have interpreted Feist to mean that compilation copyright protection is very limited and usually requires substantial verbatim copying. Key Pub’ns v. Chinatown Today, 945 F.2d 509, 514 (2d Cir. 1991). Sixty-one percent can hardly be considered the “same” selection. See, e.g., Schoolhouse Inc. v. Anderson, 275 1 LawMode’s expression in selecting which forms to include is protected by copyright. LawMode’s collection of 576 forms from a universe of over 700 forms is protected by copyright even though the forms themselves are not copyrightable individually. See Feist Publ’ns, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., 499 U.S. 340, 348 (1991). This is because LawMode’s decision of which forms to include shows that modicum of creativity necessary to turn mere selection into copyrightable expression. See id. at 345. 2 It is true that 350 divided by 406 yields a higher percentage, as the district court noted. Ross, Brovins & Oehmke, P.C. v. Lexis Nexis, 348 F. Supp. 2d. 845, 858 (E.D. Mich. 2004). But as the Second Circuit reasoned in Key Publications, the percentage of the plaintiff’s compilation used by the defendant is typically the more relevant number. In Key Publications v. Chinatown Today, 945 F.2d 509, 515 (2d Cir. 1991), the Second Circuit considered whether the defendant’s Chinese American-Life Guide, a yellow pages of interest to the Chinese community, copied the selection of businesses included within the plaintiff’s competing phone book. First, the Key Publications court considered that 75% of the listings in defendant’s telephone directory were taken from plaintiff’s directory. Id. The 75% figure was not the relevant figure. Id. The better figure was that only 17% of plaintiff’s listings, or 1500 of 9000 listings, were copied. Id. As the Key Publications court noted, the significance of the copied material to the plaintiff’s work, rather than its significance to the defendant’s work, is important in evaluating substantial similarity. No. 05-1513 Ross Brovins & Oehmke v. Lexis Nexis Group Page 5 F.3d 726, 729-30 (8th Cir. 2002) (holding that a ratio of seventy-four percent of the same items was not substantial similarity in light of Feist). To be sure, in Eckes v. Card Prices Update, 736 F.2d 859, 863-64 (2d Cir. 1984), the Second Circuit found that a directory that copied 5,000 out of 18,000 (28%) of plaintiff’s baseball card listings constituted copyright infringement. But in that case the defendant copied all of plaintiff’s listings of “premium” cards. Thus, the relevant percentage was more like 100%. This is not a case where Lexis replicated a discrete portion of LawMode’s work in its entirety. The Eckes case shows that careful attention must be paid to the nature of the creative expression that has allegedly been copied, and that sheer numbers out of context can be misleading. In this case, the nature of the material used by Lexis shows that there was no copying as a matter of law. The two works are so dissimilar in expression that reasonable minds could not differ as to the absence of substantial similarity. See Stromback, 384 F.3d at 294-95; see also Schoolhouse, 275 F.3d at 729 (basing its decision on the response that a reasonable person would have toward the two works). It is undisputed that Lexis made the decision to add at least 35 forms to its database. It is also undisputed that Lexis chose not to include various forms used by LawMode in its compilation. The professional judgment used in selecting forms that gave LawMode copyright protection also gives Lexis protection from LawMode’s allegation of infringement.