Jack.Winslade@f666.n285.z1.fidonet.org (Jack Winslade) (11/21/90)
American Business Information, Inc., formerly American Business Lists,
is an Omaha-area firm which compiles and distributes lists of
businesses -- by type of business, by area, you name it, they've got
it. Their primary source of information: The phone book.
According to the {Omaha World-Herald}, 'A question over who owns the
list of names and phone numbers in telephone books has prompted
BellSouth Corp., a regional telephone company, to sue a Ralston (NE)
firm for copyright infringement. BellSouth, which is based in Atlanta,
filed a similar suit against Donnelly Marketing ...'
'American Business (Information) reacted to BellSouth's action by
filing an antitrust lawsuit against the phone company, alleging it is
attempting to monopolize directory data.'
'"If it's copyrighted material, (ABI CEO, Vinod) Gupta asked, why did
the telephone company wait until now to prevent its use by the list-
making industry, which has been in existence for more than 30 years?"'
'This is the second time (they) have been challenged by a regional
telephone company. Southwestern Bell ... filed a similar lawsuit in
1984 shortly after the divestiture ... (which) was settled out of
court in 1985 with ABI entering into a licensing agreement with the
telephone company ...'
'Gupta ... said the list-making industry had a good working
relationship with AT&T and its subsidiaries prior to the divestiture.
The phone company purchased and promoted its products, he said.'
The article goes on to say that the case is not yet scheduled for
trial.
As a sidebar here (and this is me, JSW talking, not the {WH}), back in
the early 1970's, through a business dealing, a close relative of mine
became part owner of a publishing/printing concern whose 'slack-time'
activities included compiling and printing 'alternative' telephone
books for small towns in the Midwest. (Think of three states that
begin with the letter 'I'.) The bucks, of course, came from hiring a
bunch of flashy salescritters to cruise the two-lane highways selling
'discount' yellow-pages ads. However, they included the white pages,
which they admittedly copied from the 'real' Phone Book <tm> <grin>.
Everyone knows that the Phone Company puts 'ringers' in their white
page listings in order to substantiate potential copyright claims.
The way they got around this was to hire a couple of local people from
each community (or give 'em a freebee display ad) to go through the
few pages of white-page listings and red-line any listings that did
not correspond to living, breathing, bodies. This wasn't too
difficult for most places, since more than ten white pages was
considered a major metropolitan area. ;-) I remember one of their
legal 'experts' stating that if they introduced even one 'ringer' of
their own, it would help in their defense, even if one of the Phone
Company's ringers should accidentally slip through. That business was
liquidated quickly. (Just some related trivia for you.)
Good day! JSW
[1:285/666@fidonet] DRBBS Technical BBS, Omaha (1:285/666)
--- Through FidoNet gateway node 1:16/390
Jack.Winslade@f666.n285.z1.fidonet.org