Vol 7 No 1 - Roger Williams University School of Law

case, the defendants had produced CD versions of the books with anumber of value added features such as allowing people to searchfor names through postcode, address or reverse phone numbersearching.63 Judge Finkelstein, relying on a series of Englishdecisions, held that in the case of compilations it was notnecessary for there to be originality in the sense of intellectualinput or creativity; sweat of the brow was sufficient.64 Heexplained:There is debate as to the meaning of “originality” incopyright law. Everyone agrees that for a work to be“original” it must be independently created by the author;that is, it must not be copied from another work. Butthere is a further requirement. The disagreementconcerns the nature of that requirement. There are twoschools of thought. On the one hand there are those whosay that copyright will only protect intellectual effort, andunless there is at least some intellectual labour in thecreation of a work, it cannot be “original”. . . .On the other hand there is a school that argues that atleast in respect of a compilation, the originalityrequirement will be satisfied if there has been some effortexpended in producing the work, especially effort ingathering or collecting the factual data that is63. Id. at para. 24.The primary data that is used to produce DtMS’ products is taken fromTelstra’s white pages directories and yellow pages directories. A Sydneycompany, Dependable Database Data Pty. Ltd., sends every white pagesdirectory and yellow pages directory to the Philippines where a large teamtypes (the technical term is key punches) all the listings into a computer.The information is changed in various respects. For example, abbreviationsare expanded (Rd to Road), the name of the State is included, and theinformation is formatted so that it may easily be read by a computer. Theinformation is then provided to DtMS in electronic form, usually as acomputer disk.The information is loaded onto the computer system maintained byDtMS. There is some cursory validation of the data, but not to any significantextent. Then information is added, such as the appropriate industry code,number of employees, facsimile number and Ausdoc DX number. Theinformation is updated if errors are identified, or if there is a “do not contact”attached to a particular nameId. at paras. 25-26.64. Id. at paras. 84-85.