## Facts

- KDB Enterprises produced an Ada County, Idaho map in 1970 and obtained a copyright.
- In 1973, KDB produced an updated Ada County map and received a copyright certificate for the new matter included in that map.
- The 1973 map depicted county boundaries, roads, terrain, features, and improved areas, and included some terrain features physically located by a KDB employee that did not appear on preexisting maps.
- Edward Sylvester Hamilton admitted making and selling precise reproductions of the copyrighted map.
- The United States charged Hamilton with two counts of knowing and willful copyright infringement under 17 U.S.C. § 104.
- Hamilton’s defense focused on copyright validity, arguing the map was largely a synthesis of public-domain information and any added investigation was too slight to satisfy originality.

## Issues

1. Whether KDB’s 1973 Ada County map had sufficient originality to support a valid copyright, making Hamilton’s admitted copying criminal infringement under 17 U.S.C. § 104.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment of conviction and $700 fine.
- The court held the 1973 map’s copyright was valid because the map reflected a contribution that was more than merely trivial.
- The court found that even if the extent of new geographic investigation alone presented a close question, originality was adequately shown through the map’s nontrivial compilation and arrangement of geographic information.

## Legal Principles

- Copyright protection requires originality; the Constitution and copyright statutes demand a contribution that is more than merely trivial.
- Trivial elements of compilation and arrangement are not copyrightable because they fall below the originality threshold.
- A factual work such as a map may be protected where original work is shown through (a) nontrivial factual investigation and/or (b) nontrivial selection, coordination, and arrangement of public-domain facts.
- Originality does not require novelty in the patent sense, but does require a distinguishable variation that is more than trivial.

## Conclusion

Because KDB’s 1973 Ada County map contained nontrivial original contribution—through at least its compilation and arrangement, and some added field-located features—the map’s copyright was valid, and Hamilton’s admitted knowing, willful reproduction supported affirmance of his criminal infringement conviction.


United States v. Hamilton, 583 F.2d 448 (9th Cir. 1978)