The Legacy of Feist Revisited – A Critical Analysis of the Creativity Requirement

Abstract

One of the most significant court decisions in copyright law has been the United States Supreme Court's decision in Feist Pub., Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., and its path-breaking approach towards the requirement of originality. The grant of copyright protection, in an intangible work, is conditioned upon the fulfillment of the prerequisite of originality. Until the Feist decision, Anglo-American copyright law had a long tradition of interpreting the requirement of originality as imposing a minimum standard of labor, skill or judgment in the production of a work that is not a copy of another work. In Feist, a watershed decision, which had international impact and influence, the United States Supreme Court first introduced the requirement of creativity into Anglo-American copyright law. According to the court's ruling, only works that entail a minimum standard of creativity could pass the threshold of originality and therefore be eligible for copyright protection.