Reproducing content from catalogues
<p>Would it be legal in the U.S. to reproduce the content of catalogues of certain stores, with my own design and formatting, while directing people to those stores?</p>
<p>Would there be a difference between publishing online or not?</p>
<p>Would there be a difference whether sourcing from the web or not?</p>
<p>Part 2: If it is legal, would it also be legal to charge for the reproduced content?</p>

<p>The content of these catalogs is almost certainly copyrighted by the companies who produced them.  Using that content without permission is going to be a violation of the copyright laws in the USA and many other places.</p>
<p>I don't see how any interpretation of fair-use applies to your stated scenario.</p>

<blockquote>
<p>Would it be legal in the U.S. to reproduce the content of catalogues
of certain stores, with my own design and formatting, while directing
people to those stores?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Maybe.</p>
<p>&quot;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_of_the_brow" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Sweat of the brow</a>&quot; collections of data from legally obtained copyrighted sources (as opposed, e.g., to theft of a trade secret) is not <em>per se</em> a copyright violation under U.S. law (although it is a question with considerable international variation in copyright law requirements). Copyright protects the manner in which ideas and information are expressed, not the ideas and information themselves. But, whether a particular incarnation of this was an infringement would be quite fact specific.</p>
<p>Per the link above:</p>
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<p>The United States rejected this doctrine in the 1991 United States
Supreme Court case <em><a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/499/340/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service</a></em>;
until then it had been upheld in a number of US copyright cases.</p>
<p>Under the <em>Feist</em> 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 &quot;simple
and obvious&quot; such as a list in alphabetical or chronological order.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For example, a cost comparison app relying on data from catalogs from various firms might be legal.</p>
<p>There have also been efforts, mostly unsuccessful, to establish <a href="https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&amp;httpsredir=1&amp;article=1703&amp;context=faculty_scholarship" rel="nofollow noreferrer">a common law claim for &quot;hot news&quot;</a> (the link is to a law review article from 2011 discussing those efforts).</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Would there be a difference between publishing online or not?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>No. This said, if one wants to confine oneself to cases subject only to U.S. law and not the countries that recognize sweat of the brow copyrights, offline publication could be safer. There are other ways, however, to geolocate the availability of work to avoid being subjected to laws in particular countries.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Would there be a difference whether sourcing from the web or not?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>No (with the possible caveat that online sourcing may raise a non-copyright terms of service issue).</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Part 2: If it is legal, would it also be legal to charge for the
reproduced content?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If it is not infringing in the first place, then charging for it is fine. The contemplated activity doesn't rely on a fair use exception where charging for it is one of many factors (non-conclusive either way) in determining fair use.</p>

copyright