[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-1-en-105":3,"doc-seo-198003-105":53,"doc-detail-198003-en":126},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,14,19,24,29,34,39,44,49],{"id":8,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":11,"show_sort_weight":12,"slug":13},11,1,"Template","Presentations",90,"presentations",{"id":15,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":16,"show_sort_weight":17,"slug":18},12,"Resumes",80,"resumes",{"id":20,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":21,"show_sort_weight":22,"slug":23},14,"Invoices",70,"invoices",{"id":25,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":26,"show_sort_weight":27,"slug":28},15,"Posters",60,"posters",{"id":30,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":31,"show_sort_weight":32,"slug":33},16,"Social Media",50,"social-media",{"id":35,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":36,"show_sort_weight":37,"slug":38},17,"Forms",40,"forms",{"id":40,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":41,"show_sort_weight":42,"slug":43},18,"Letters",30,"letters",{"id":45,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":46,"show_sort_weight":47,"slug":48},21,"Paper Templates",5,"papers-templates",{"id":50,"doc_module":9,"doc_module_name":10,"category_name":51,"show_sort_weight":4,"slug":52},158,"General","general-158",{"code":4,"msg":54,"data":55},"ok",{"site_id":56,"language":57,"slug":58,"title":59,"keywords":60,"description":61,"schema_data":62,"social_meta":119,"head_meta":121,"extra_data":123,"updated_unix":125},105,"en","legal-publishing-and-database-protection-introduction","Legal Publishing and Database Protection - Introduction","","Legal Publishing and Database Protection examines why legal information providers command premium demand for accuracy, speed, quality, and usability. It traces how United States copyright doctrine shaped reporters’ rights, while facts and compilations remained outside protection. The discussion connects historical litigation and consolidation among major publishers to current proposals for short-term database protection, assessing how such “copyright-like” protection would conflict with Supreme Court and appellate standards on originality.",{"@graph":63,"@context":118},[64,80,101],{"@type":65,"itemListElement":66},"BreadcrumbList",[67,71,74,77],{"item":68,"name":69,"@type":70,"position":9},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":72,"name":10,"@type":70,"position":73},"https://docshare.wps.com/template/",2,{"item":75,"name":51,"@type":70,"position":76},"https://docshare.wps.com/template/general/",3,{"item":78,"name":59,"@type":70,"position":79},"https://docshare.wps.com/template/legal-publishing-and-database-protection-introduction/198003/",4,{"url":78,"name":59,"@type":81,"image":82,"author":87,"headline":59,"publisher":90,"fileFormat":93,"inLanguage":57,"description":61,"dateModified":94,"datePublished":95,"encodingFormat":93,"isAccessibleForFree":96,"interactionStatistic":97},"DigitalDocument",{"url":83,"@type":84,"width":85,"height":86},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/legal-publishing-and-database-protection-introduction/198003.png","ImageObject",442,249,{"name":88,"@type":89},"Mason","Person",{"url":68,"name":91,"@type":92},"DocShare","Organization","application/octet-stream","2026-09-28","2026-09-03",true,{"@type":98,"interactionType":99,"userInteractionCount":79},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":100},"ViewAction",{"@type":102,"mainEntity":103},"FAQPage",[104,110,114],{"name":105,"@type":106,"acceptedAnswer":107},"Why do lawyers and clients pay a premium for legal data in the introduction?","Question",{"text":108,"@type":109},"The introduction explains that accuracy, speed, quality, and ease of use drive willingness to pay for timely legal information in an accessible format.","Answer",{"name":111,"@type":106,"acceptedAnswer":112},"How has U.S. copyright law historically treated court opinions and related reporting?",{"text":113,"@type":109},"The text notes that copyright law encourages publication of court decisions by for-profit compilers, while no reporter can claim copyright in the courts’ written opinions; reporters can hold copyright interest in their own reporting.",{"name":115,"@type":106,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What legislative protection do major legal publishers support, and why is it controversial?",{"text":117,"@type":109},"Major publishers support short-term copyright-like protection for their databases even when the content is non-copyrightable facts. The controversy is that database compilations of facts conflict with standards requiring originality, as emphasized in Feist and refined through later cases.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":78,"og:type":120,"og:title":59,"og:site_name":91,"og:description":61},"article",{"robots":122,"canonical":78},"index,follow",{"doc_id":124,"site_id":56},198003,1788472945,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":127},{"doc_id":124,"user_id":128,"nickname":88,"user_avatar":129,"doc_module":9,"category_id":50,"category_name":51,"doc_title":59,"doc_description":61,"doc_content":130,"file_id":131,"file_url":132,"file_type":133,"file_size":134,"view_count":79,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":9,"is_downloadable":9,"audit_status":9,"page_count":135,"language":136,"language_code":57,"site_id":56,"html_lang":57,"table_of_contents":137,"faqs":138,"seo_title":139,"seo_description":61,"update_tm":125,"read_time":8},5909887256941,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_9964176cb1d06d4a9deccf72a44ae3dc","Legal Publishing and Database Protection\nby Jason Gelman\nTABLE OF CONTENTS\n\u0013 TOC \\o \"1-3\" \\h \\z \u0014\u0013 HYPERLINK \\l \"_Toc83035722\" \u0014Introduction\t\u0013 PAGEREF _Toc83035722 \\h \u00142\u0015\u0015\n\u0013 HYPERLINK \\l \"_Toc83035723\" \u0014Litigation and Consolidation\t\u0013 PAGEREF _Toc83035723 \\h \u00143\u0015\u0015\n\u0013 HYPERLINK \\l \"_Toc83035724\" \u0014I.\t    A Brief History\t\u0013 PAGEREF _Toc83035724 \\h \u00143\u0015\u0015\n\u0013 HYPERLINK \\l \"_Toc83035725\" \u0014II.\t    The First Big Challenge: Mead Data Central v. West Publishing Co.\t\u0013 PAGEREF _Toc83035725 \\h \u00144\u0015\u0015\n\u0013 HYPERLINK \\l \"_Toc83035726\" \u0014III.\tThe Tide Turns: Feist and Industry Consolidation\t\u0013 PAGEREF _Toc83035726 \\h \u00144\u0015\u0015\n\u0013 HYPERLINK \\l \"_Toc83035727\" \u0014IV.\tThomson Buys Legal Publishers, Prompts Antitrust Investigation\t\u0013 PAGEREF _Toc83035727 \\h \u00146\u0015\u0015\n\u0013 HYPERLINK \\l \"_Toc83035728\" \u0014V.\t    Industry Litigation Spreads: The Bender, Hyperlaw and Oasis Cases\t\u0013 PAGEREF _Toc83035728 \\h \u00147\u0015\u0015\n\u0013 HYPERLINK \\l \"_Toc83035729\" \u0014VI.\tThe Industry after Bender: Legal Publishers Consolidate\t\u0013 PAGEREF _Toc83035729 \\h \u001410\u0015\u0015\n\u0013 HYPERLINK \\l \"_Toc83035730\" \u0014VII.\tThe Business of Legal Publishing in 2004\t\u0013 PAGEREF _Toc83035730 \\h \u001411\u0015\u0015\n\u0013 HYPERLINK \\l \"_Toc83035731\" \u0014VIII.\tProposed Legislative Protection\t\u0013 PAGEREF _Toc83035731 \\h \u001413\u0015\u0015\n\u0013 HYPERLINK \\l \"_Toc83035732\" \u0014IX.\tExisting Legal Protections\t\u0013 PAGEREF _Toc83035732 \\h \u001415\u0015\u0015\n\u0013 HYPERLINK \\l \"_Toc83035733\" \u0014Conclusion\t\u0013 PAGEREF _Toc83035733 \\h \u001416\u0015\u0015\n\u0013 HYPERLINK \\l \"_Toc83035734\" \u0014Appendix A- Trademarks\t\u0013 PAGEREF _Toc83035734 \\h \u001418\u0015\u0015\n\u0013 HYPERLINK \\l \"_Toc83035735\" \u0014Appendix B- Patents\t\u0013 PAGEREF _Toc83035735 \\h \u001426\u0015\u0015\n\u0013 HYPERLINK \\l \"_Toc83035736\" \u0014Appendix C- Copyrights\t\u0013 PAGEREF _Toc83035736 \\h \u001428\u0015\u0015\n\u0013 HYPERLINK \\l \"_Toc83035737\" \u0014Appendix D- Acquisitions Timeline\t\u0013 PAGEREF _Toc83035737 \\h \u001432\u0015\u0015\n\u0015\n\u000f\nIntroduction\nWhen it comes to legal data, lawyers and their clients are willing to pay a premium for accuracy, speed, quality and ease of use. As such, the legal information market is highly profitable and has been so for the last 120 years. Lawyers have long demonstrated a willingness to pay for up-to-the-minute access to information in an easily accessible format. While there are currently discount and “free” sources of law, attorneys have demonstrated a preference for the more expensive services.\nThe providers of these services, legal publishers, have litigated against each other over their copyright in court decisions since the early nineteenth century. United States copyright law has been tailored to encourage publication of court decisions by for-profit compilers. As such, “no reporter has or can have any copyright in the written opinions delivered by th[e] court; and . . . the judges thereof cannot confer on any reporter any such right,” but reporters have a copyright interest in their own reporting of the court’s decisions. To remain competitive against low-cost providers of legal information, legal publishers have jealously guarded their proprietary methods of reporting court decisions.\nRecently, the major legal publishers have come together in support of legislation that would give them short-term copyright-like protection for their databases, even if these databases contain information that is non-copyrightable. Copyright law has historically not been applicable to mere facts, and a database is, by definition, a compilation of facts. This legislation would be directly in opposition to the law established by the United States Supreme Court in Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., which prohibited compilers of information from claiming copyright for unoriginal compilations of facts. Feist established that “originality, not simply hard work, is the constitutionally mandated prerequisite for copyright protection.” This standard was further refined by the Second Circuit in Matthew Bender & Co. v. West Publishing Co., where the court held that the West Publishing Company (“West”) did not hold copyright in the items in its databases and as such a competitor could freely copy the text of court decisions from this data","cbCaivcgHhqxelhl","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaivcgHhqxelhl","doc",1843712,32,"English","# Introduction\n# Litigation and Consolidation\n## A Brief History\n## The First Big Challenge: Mead Data Central v. West Publishing Co.\n## The Tide Turns: Feist and Industry Consolidation\n## Thomson Buys Legal Publishers, Prompts Antitrust Investigation\n## Industry Litigation Spreads: The Bender, Hyperlaw and Oasis Cases\n## The Industry after Bender: Legal Publishers Consolidate\n## The Business of Legal Publishing in 2004\n## Proposed Legislative Protection\n## Existing Legal Protections\n# Conclusion\n# Appendix A- Trademarks\n# Appendix B- Patents\n# Appendix C- Copyrights\n# Appendix D- Acquisitions Timeline","[{\"question\":\"Why do lawyers and clients pay a premium for legal data in the introduction?\",\"answer\":\"The introduction explains that accuracy, speed, quality, and ease of use drive willingness to pay for timely legal information in an accessible format.\"},{\"question\":\"How has U.S. copyright law historically treated court opinions and related reporting?\",\"answer\":\"The text notes that copyright law encourages publication of court decisions by for-profit compilers, while no reporter can claim copyright in the courts’ written opinions; reporters can hold copyright interest in their own reporting.\"},{\"question\":\"What legislative protection do major legal publishers support, and why is it controversial?\",\"answer\":\"Major publishers support short-term copyright-like protection for their databases even when the content is non-copyrightable facts. The controversy is that database compilations of facts conflict with standards requiring originality, as emphasized in Feist and refined through later cases.\"}]","Legal Publishing and Database Protection - Introduction | DOC"]