Actually, that source quotes the Feist decision. The rest of the discussion makes it pretty clear that domain registries are not copyrightable.
“Thus, a database of unprotectable works (such as basic facts) is protected only as a compilation. Since the underlying data is not protected, U.S. copyright law does not prevent the extraction of unprotected data from an otherwise protectable database. In the example of a database of presidential quotations, it would therefore not be a violation of copyright law to extract (copy) a quotation from George Washington from the database. On the other hand, it would be violation to copy the entire database, as long as the database met the Feist<https://bitlaw.com/copyright/database.html#Feist> originality and creativity requirements.” The key problem is that no domain registry meets the originality and creativity requirements set forth by SCOTUS in Feist. I am not a lawyer either, but I have a lot of initials after my name, just like some lawyers that post on NANOG :) -mel beckman, ABC, ACM, DEF, PFL, MEL, SEL, IFR, A&P, X&Y, QWERTY, ASDFG, NANOG,and St. Anthony’s Elementary School Diploma On May 7, 2022, at 9:58 AM, Niels Bakker <niels=na...@bakker.net> wrote: * m...@beckman.org (Mel Beckman) [Sat 07 May 2022, 18:38 CEST]: I don’t think copyright can enter into it, by dint of the fact that registry data, being purely factual and publicly available, cannot be copyrighted. I'm not a lawyer nor pretend to be one on the internet but https://bitlaw.com/copyright/database.html provides some nuance to that statement. -- Niels.
