Automated Databases

Copyright protection extends to the compilation of facts if the compilation represents original authorship. Some or all the contents of a database, new or revised, may also be copyrightable, as in the case of a full-text bibliographic database.

Copyright protection is not available for:

• ideas, methods, systems, concepts, and layouts
  
  
• individual words and short phrases, individual plain facts, and
  
  
• the selection and ordering of data in a database where the collection and arrangement of the material is a mechanical task only and represents no original authorship; for example, merely transferring data from hard copy to computer storage

For details on how to register automated databases, please see Circular 65, Copyright Registration for Automated Databases.