Kregos v. Associated Press

937 F.2d 700 (2nd Cir. 1991)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

P distributes to newspapers a pitching form that displays information concerning the past performances of the opposing pitchers scheduled to start each day's baseball games. In 1984, D began publishing a pitching form provided by Sports Features. D's 1984 form was virtually identical to P's 1983 form. Ds changed their form in 1986. P's form lists four items of information about each day's games -- the teams, the starting pitchers, the game time, and the betting odds, and then lists nine items of information about each pitcher's past performance, grouped into three categories. It is undisputed that prior to P's 1983 form, no form had listed the same nine items collected in his form. Some but not all of the nine items of information had previously appeared in other forms. In the earlier forms, the items common to P's form were grouped with items different from P. The District Court granted summary judgment for Ds. It held that P lacked a copyrightable interest in his pitching form on three grounds: (1) the form was insufficiently original in its selection of statistics to warrant copyright as a compilation; (2) the possible variations in selections of pitching statistics were so limited that the idea of a pitching form had merged into its expression; and (3) the 'blank form' doctrine prohibited copyright. P appealed.