Sweat of the brow

Sweat of the brow is an intellectual property law doctrine that is chiefly related to copyright law. According to this doctrine, an author gains rights through simple diligence during the creation of a work, such as a database, or a directory. Substantial creativity or "originality" is not required. Under a "sweat of the brow" doctrine, the creator of a work, even if it is completely unoriginal, is entitled to have that effort and expense protected; no one else may use such a work without permission, but must instead recreate the work by independent research or effort. The classic example is a telephone directory. In a "sweat of the brow" jurisdiction, such a directory may not be copied, but instead a competitor must independently collect the information to issue a competing directory. The same rule generally applies to databases and lists of facts. According to the Databases Directive 96/9/EC, member states of the EU are obliged to confer protection known as the database right on non-original databases, that is on those that embody no creativity, but are a consequence of substantial investment (financial, labour etc.). In a traditional English idiom, the sweat of one's brow refers to the effort expended in labour, and the value created thereby. The phrase is famously used in English translations of . The law doctrine takes its name from this idiom. Copyright law in the United States The United States rejected this doctrine in the 1991 United States Supreme Court case Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service; until then it had been upheld in a number of US copyright cases. Under the Feist ruling in the US, mere collections of facts are considered unoriginal and thus not protected by copyright, no matter how much work went into collating them. The arrangement and presentation of a collection may be original, but not if it is "simple and obvious" such as a list in alphabetical or chronological order. Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA), for copyright to subsist in a work, that work must be original.