Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co.’s Empirical Analysis
1991
Citation profile
804 federal appellate · 664 district · 30 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,845 later decisions (13 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2025 · most notably Fogerty Fantasy Inc (1994), Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. (1994)
804 federal appellate · 664 district · 30 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Appellate journey
reviewedRural Telephone Service Company, Inc. v. Feist Publications, Inc (from Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 17 U.S.C. § 101 (§ 101 of the Copyright Act of 1976) · 17 U.S.C. § 102 (§ 101 of the Copyright Act of 1976)
Relies on Carnegie v. United States · Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises · Moskal v. United States · International News Service v. Associated Press
Cited together with Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. · Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises · Celotex Corporation v. Catrett H · Sony Corporation of America v. Universal City Studios Inc · Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corporation
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 3,845 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) ownership of a valid copyright, and (2) copying of constituent elements of the work that are original.”
253 later decisions quote this exact passage“independent creation plus a modicum of creativity,”
6 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Craft Smith, LLC v. Ec Design, LLC · William C. Bond v. Kenneth Blum, Sr. Kenneth Blum, Jr. Dudley F.B. Hodgson McDaniel Bennett & Griffin Adelberg, Rudow, Dorf & Hendler, LLC Christopher W. Nicholson William Slavin, William C. Bond v. Adelberg, Rudow, Dorf & Hendler, Llc, and Kenneth Blum, Sr. Kenneth Blum, Jr. Dudley F.B. Hodgson McDaniel Bennett & Griffin, William C. Bond v. Adelberg, Rudow, Dorf & Hendler, Llc, and Kenneth Blum, Sr. Kenneth Blum, Jr. Dudley F.B. Hodgson McDaniel Bennett & Griffin, William C. Bond v. McDaniel Bennett & Griffin, and Adelberg, Rudow, Dorf & Hendler, LLC Kenneth Blum, Sr. Kenneth Blum, Jr. Dudley F.B. Hodgson“do not owe their origin to an act of authorship,”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.