Forms of Mental Labor in the Feist Judgment

The Feist judgment by the Supreme Court, which denied copyright to telephone white pages, occurred in 1991 and is regarded as one of the most significant copyright decisions concerning information technology – and "inordinately Delphic even by Supreme Court standards." This presentation attempts to clarify the judgment by distinguishing different forms of mental labor, and their relation to technology, which are implicit or covert in the judgment itself. The presentation is deliberately exploratory and the presenter encourages communal contributions.