The phone directories case (Feist v. Rural) is not relevant or helpful
to us here. The point there was that telephone listings involve purely a
compilation of factual information. The selection of encyclopedia
subjects does not--as we should know, it involves considerable editorial
judgment.
If we copy titles from Columbia or anywhere else, it's a bad idea.
Comparative advertising is a dubious defense, especially since right now
it sounds like we're using this much more for internal reference than
for outside advertising. Besides, like all fair use, it depends on the
factual situation, and part of the equation is the scope of copying
going on. Wholesale copying of article titles is not likely to be fair
use under any analysis.
Instead of avoiding copyright paranoia, why not just avoid copying,
especially so blatantly? We can do better working from our own content
than using somebody else as a base. From Jimbo's post, it appears that
he thinks it's a bad idea, too.
--Michael Snow