Zacchini v. Scripps-Howard Broadcasting Company:
What is public information and what kinds of information are copyrighted? In the age of the Internet where literally millions of pages of documents are available through the use of a modem, a search engine, and a browser, this is a question that needs to be answered. Why? Because what may be legally defined as public information vis-ß-vis a database, might in some way be protected under the law. It might be convenient to be able access all the names and phone numbers of out-of-town relatives from a computer desktop. But by doing so, is the letter of the law being violated in reference to our right to privacy? What information is considered public access, and what information is protected under the law? The case of Zacchini v. Scripps-Howard Broadcasting Co., 433 U.S. 562, 569 (1977), can be considered one jumping off point, where the courts of the United States began to more closely define what is, and what is not considered public information.
Privacy, in the parlance of common sense, is the expectation that confidential personal information disclosed in a private place will not be disclosed to third parties. Information is interpreted broadly to include facts, images, and opinions. The right of privacy, legally speaking, is restricted to individuals who are in a place that a person would reasonably expect to be private (e.g., home, hotel room, telephone booth). There is no legally defined protection for information that either is a matter of public record or voluntarily disclosed in a public place. An excellent site to search out information on privacy issues is www.nolo.com/ (Self help law center, 1998).
The right of privacy has only recently received legal recognition and is still an evolving area of law. It is generally agreed that the first publication advocating privacy was the article by Warren and Brandeis, The Right to Privacy, 4 Harvard L.R. 193 (18...