Wal-Mart Obtains Court Order Over Posting of its Advertising Circular

On November 27th, using the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Wal-Mart obtained a subpoena from the U.S. District Court (Northern District of Illinois) directing fatwallet.com to disclose the identity of an anonymous user who posted Wal-Mart's Thanksgiving advertising circular. Fatwallet.com operates a web site that allows users to post and discuss information about prices and products. This proceeding is similar to the NYMEX/ICE litigation in raising the interesting question of whether there exists intellectual property rights, specifically copyright, in a list of prices which , in Wal-Mart's case, was contained in the company's advertising circular. Wal-Mart's position is that "the posting of the Circular violates Wal-Mart's intellectual property rights in the Circular". It is likely that Fatwallet.com will argue that the information posted constitutes facts as opposed to an original piece of work and as such, is not subject to copyright protection. For additional information, visit: http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z2A521AA2