Can FAQs Be Copyrighted?

scubacuda writes: "Are FAQs copywritable? Judge Barbara B. Crabb, of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, in the case Mist-On Systems, Inc. v. Gilley's European Tan Spa, didn't think so."

Comments

The court didn't say you can't copyright an FAQ

[btempleton]

They simply said that you can't copyright the idea of an FAQ or the format of an FAQ, or a list of obvious questions.

If the FAQ had been swiped, with answers copied verbatim, it would have been a different ruling. The court ruled the competitor's FAQ was sufficiently different to not be an infringement, or so the article you point at said.

So this is much ado over nothing.

It's the IDEA of FAQ not copyrightable

[Seth Finkelstein]

It's the idea of the FAQ which was at issue. A particular FAQ might be copyrightable. But the specific FAQ was not a copyright infringement.

Per the article:
(and this is a better link too!)

Ultimately, Mist-On agreed that it could not copyright the idea of a FAQ page. However, Mist-On argued that because the Gilley's FAQ page was so similar to the Mist-On FAQ page that there must be some copyright infringement.

The court swatted away this argument by noting the differences between the two Web pages, such as the fact that "the sequence, the wording and the number of the questions are different from each other," "five of defendants' questions are entirely unique to their page," "seven of plaintiff's questions are entirely unique to its page," and "the layout of the web page[s] is different." Moreover, "there is no truth to plaintiff's assertion that many of defendants' questions and answers are 'nearly identical' to plaintiff's."

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

A word to the editors

[Bastian]

READ THE DAMN ARTICLE BEFORE YOU POST IT ON THE MAIN PAGE!

This court case is so banal it doesn't even deserve mention. The plaintiff was suing the defendant on the grounds that it basically ripped off the idea of having a FAQ at all, which is about as asinine as having one publisher sue another for putting a synopsis on the back of a book. It wasn't even over whether one FAQ was a copy of the other - they didn't cover the same questions or use the same answers to those questions that were the same.

What's next, Slashdot posting an article about a court ruling that it is indeed legal for everyone to write books about how to use computer software without paying royalties to O'Rielly?

persecution complex, anyone?

[SmittyTheBold]

You know, the /. crowd houses an alarming number of alarmists. I mean, it's good and all that people are ever-vigilant, yadda yadda, but areound here alert is raised just to be called off fully half the time.

If the editors edited instead of simply relaying common memes, maybe this problem would go away. At least a little bit.

Here are the two FAQ's.

[CMU_Nort]

I don't know what the hell Mist-On was thinking except for trying to eliminate competition. These FAQ's are hardly anything alike.

http://www.mist-on.com/faq.htm

http://www.gilleystanspa.com/content/sunless.htm#s prayspa