## Facts

- Key Publications, Inc. published an annual Chinese-American business directory for New York City and nearby areas, including a yellow-pages-style classified section.
- The appeal concerned the yellow-pages section of Key’s 1989–90 directory, which Key registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.
- Key’s president compiled listings by gathering information from businesses she chose to solicit and include, then organizing listings by business type.
- The 1989–90 directory contained about 9,000 bilingual listings (English and Chinese) organized into more than 260 categories.
- A modest portion of listings in Key’s earliest directory had been copied from a prior restaurant directory; some of those listings remained in later editions.
- Galore Enterprises, Inc. and its principal, Ma Kam Yee, published a competing 1990 directory with about 2,000 listings in 28 categories.
- Roughly 1,500 of Galore’s listings also appeared in Key’s directory, but Galore’s categorization system was far less granular.
- The district court found Key’s directory copyrightable and found infringement, awarding statutory damages and injunctive relief.
- Galore and Ma appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether Key’s yellow-pages classified directory qualifies as a copyrightable factual compilation based on original selection and arrangement.
2. Whether Galore infringed Key’s compilation copyright by including many of the same business listings.

## Decision

- The court held the 1989–90 yellow-pages section was copyrightable as a compilation because Key made original selection and arrangement choices meeting the minimal creativity threshold.
- The court held Galore did not infringe because copyright protection for compilations is limited to original selection and arrangement, not the underlying factual listings.
- The court reversed the district court’s judgment for Key.

## Legal Principles

- Facts (names, addresses, phone numbers) are not protected by copyright, but a factual compilation may be protected to the extent of original selection, coordination, or arrangement.
- The originality requirement for compilations is minimal; editorial judgment in what to include and how to classify content can satisfy it.
- Copyright in factual compilations is “thin,” so infringement requires substantial similarity in protectable selection/arrangement rather than mere duplication of unprotectable facts.
- A later compiler may use facts found in an earlier compilation if it does not appropriate the earlier compiler’s original organizational structure or other protectable expressive elements.

## Conclusion

The court recognized limited (“thin”) copyright protection in a classified business directory’s original selection and categorization, but held that extensive overlap in factual listings did not establish infringement where the defendant did not substantially copy the directory’s protectable selection and arrangement.


Key Publ’ns, Inc. v. Chinatown Today Publ’g Enters., Inc., 945 F.2d 509 (2d Cir. 1991)