Copyright notice in hosts file is absurd, incorrect

[tereto]

In Spybot 1.6, when you immunize, it adds a list of websites to the hosts file to block them. In addition to this, it adds a copyright notice which reads "This list is Copyright 2000-2008 Safer Networking Limited."
A list cannot be copyrighted. This copyright notice is incorrect, misleading, and offensive. Please remove it from future versions.

[kenalcock]

Your assertion is incorrect. There is an important technicality involved here.

A particular list can be copyrighted. However, the individual datum contained in the list cannot be copyrighted, unless that datum is actually owned by the party professing a copyright. There was a Supreme court case involving such matters in the early 1990s involving a telephone company vs. the publisher of one of the first phone book software packages. The court upheld that one could not copyright an individual datum listed in the phone book (a person's or a business': name, telephone number, and address), but one could copyright the book itself, including the presentation format of all data displayed in it.

This means that anyone is free to do his investigation and compile his own list, which can include the exactly the same information as someone else's list. But the two lists must show uniqueness. One cannot simply copy-and-paste another person's list and claim it as their own work.