COMPILATION WORKS AND ORIGINALITY

A “compilation” is a work formed by the collection and assembling of pre-existing materials or of data that are selected, coordinated or arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship, such as periodical issue, anthology, encyclopedia, telephone directory, etc. Since the prerequisite for protection of copyright works is originality, this question arises whether these works are original and may also be copyrightable. The meaning of originality is not defined in the majority of national copyright legislations. Instead, the interpretation of what is to be original has been left mainly to the courts. Courts have different opinions regarding the definition of originality and its conditions. However, the Supreme Court of United States in the Feist case put an end to this division.
This article attempts to study the notion of originality of compilations works by analyzing the Feist case in order to answer whether compilation works have any originality and if the answer is yes, what is its scope.