## Facts

- Hodge E. Mason created and published a series of real estate ownership maps covering Montgomery County, Texas, initially 118 maps (1967–1969) and later expanded to 233 maps, each bearing copyright notices.
- The maps depicted surveys, grants, tracts, topographical features, and land-ownership information, including deed/abstract references, acreage, and owners’ names.
- Mason compiled data from multiple sources, plotted survey and tract lines onto U.S. Geological Survey base maps, used overlays, enlarged and combined layers, and produced final printed maps.
- Montgomery Data, Inc. purchased at least one map and used Mason’s map in a commercial land-indexing system; Mason alleged defendants traced/copy-converted his map and sold the resulting product.
- Defendants argued the maps were not copyrightable because they consisted of factual, publicly available information.

## Issues

1. Whether Mason’s land-ownership maps were sufficiently original to be copyrighted, or were excluded by the idea–expression merger doctrine because they depict factual land and ownership data.
2. Whether Mason could recover statutory damages and attorney’s fees for infringement of all 233 maps, or only for one map, given the registration timing rules.
3. Whether defendants’ conduct constituted infringement, where the district court did not reach the infringement analysis before granting summary judgment.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court’s ruling that the maps were uncopyrightable and remanded.
- The court held the maps were copyrightable compilations because the selection, coordination, and arrangement of factual material reflected sufficient originality.
- The court affirmed the limitation that, if infringement were proven, statutory damages and attorney’s fees were recoverable only for infringement of one of the 233 maps.
- The court declined to affirm on alternative “no infringement” grounds and left infringement issues for the district court on remand.

## Legal Principles

- Facts and public-domain data are not protected by copyright, but a compilation of facts may be protected if the author’s selection, coordination, and arrangement show minimal creativity.
- The idea–expression merger doctrine does not bar protection when there are multiple ways to express the underlying idea; cartographic works may contain protectable expression despite accuracy constraints.
- Copyrightability and infringement are distinct inquiries; protectability does not establish liability without proof of copying of protectable expression.
- Statutory damages and attorney’s fees are limited by registration timing requirements; liability may extend to multiple works even when enhanced remedies do not.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit held that Mason’s land-ownership maps contained protectable original expression as compilations and rejected the view that factual mapmaking necessarily merges idea and expression, while limiting statutory damages and attorney’s fees to one map and remanding for infringement determinations.


Mason v. Montgomery Data, Inc., 967 F.2d 135 (5th Cir. 1992)