Takeaway
In short, this case confirms that copyright’s low originality threshold still excludes short phrases, familiar symbols, and simple arrangements when the Copyright Office reasonably finds that the combined expression lacks sufficient creative authorship.
Wesley Scott Ashton sought to register a copyright in the text of a hand-painted coffee mug. The mug displayed the phrase “People Pleaser in Recovery” on its exterior, the word “Refill” inside the mug, and a drawing of a raised middle finger on its bottom. It also included visual artwork—a flower, butterflies, and a lizard. Ashton characterized the words and middle-finger pictogram, arranged across the mug, as a short poetic literary work.
The Copyright Office denied registration of the asserted text claim, while repeatedly offering to register the mug’s two-dimensional artwork. On final reconsideration, the Office concluded that the individual textual elements and their selection, coordination, and arrangement lacked the minimal creative authorship required for copyright protection. It treated the middle-finger drawing as copyrightable artwork but found that, even if regarded as a literary symbol, it did not make the text sufficiently creative.
Ashton, proceeding pro se, sued under the Administrative Procedure Act. He argued that the Copyright Office had failed to consider his evidence and arguments and had applied the wrong legal standard to his claimed literary work. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the court upheld the agency’s final decision, denied Ashton’s motion, and granted the Copyright Office’s cross-motion.
Issue #1
Whether the Copyright Office acted arbitrarily or capriciously by failing to consider Ashton’s arguments and adequately explain its denial.
Holding
No. The Office considered the relevant issue and gave a reasoned explanation for denying registration of the text claim.
Reasoning
APA review asks whether the agency considered the relevant factors and articulated a rational connection between the facts found and the decision reached. The reviewing court does not retry the copyright question from scratch; it determines whether the administrative record permitted the agency to act as it did.
The Office’s final decision expressly concluded that both the mug’s individual textual elements and their selection, coordination, and arrangement failed to show the creative authorship required for a text copyright. It separately explained that short words and phrases and familiar symbols generally are not copyrightable, and that the combined elements also failed the creativity threshold.
The Office was not required to address every case, article, or analogy Ashton submitted. His cited materials—including a case involving presumed copying, a law-review article on the middle finger’s meaning, and William Carlos Williams’s short poem “The Red Wheelbarrow”—were not material enough to require specific discussion. The agency adequately addressed the important question: whether Ashton’s claimed text was original enough for copyright protection.
Issue #2
Whether the Copyright Office improperly applied Feist’s originality standard because Ashton claimed a poem rather than a factual compilation.
Holding
No. Feist supplies the governing originality standard for literary works as well as compilations.
Reasoning
Copyright protects only original works of authorship. Under Feist, originality requires independent creation and a minimal degree of creativity. Although the required creativity is low, it is not nonexistent.
Ashton argued that Feist was limited to factual compilations because it involved a telephone directory. The court rejected that argument because courts routinely apply Feist’s originality framework to many types of works, including written material, classifications, product numbers, and promotional phrases.
Accordingly, the Office properly used Feist to assess whether Ashton’s short phrases, pictogram, and asserted poetic composition possessed the minimum creativity needed for registration.
Issue #3
Whether the Copyright Office committed legal error by refusing to treat the middle-finger pictogram as a literary work.
Holding
No. The final decision assumed, for argument’s sake, that the pictogram could be an expressive literary symbol and still found the claimed text unprotectable.
Reasoning
Ashton maintained that the middle-finger drawing was text because it conveyed a recognizable meaning and therefore qualified as a literary work under the Copyright Act’s reference to words, numbers, and verbal or numerical symbols or indicia.
But the Office did not rest its final denial solely on classifying the pictogram as visual artwork rather than text. It stated that, to the extent the pictogram was treated as an expressive symbol and thus as literary work, its expressive content was de minimis.
Because the agency assumed Ashton’s preferred characterization and nevertheless found insufficient creativity in the work as a whole, the court had no need to decide the broader statutory question whether a middle-finger pictogram is itself a literary work.
Issue #4
Whether the phrases “People Pleaser in Recovery” and “Refill,” alone or combined with the middle-finger pictogram, had sufficient originality to support a copyright in text.
Holding
No. The Office reasonably concluded that the short phrases and familiar symbol, considered separately and together, did not cross copyright’s minimal creativity threshold.
Reasoning
Copyright regulations exclude words and short phrases, including names, titles, and slogans, as well as familiar symbols or designs. Courts likewise have denied protection to brief common phrases even where the expression has some rhetorical force or cultural resonance.
The Office concluded that neither “People Pleaser in Recovery” nor “Refill” was independently copyrightable. It also reasonably found that the familiar middle-finger symbol did not add enough expressive authorship to create a copyrightable literary composition.
Given the highly deferential APA standard, the court could not say the Office made a clear error of judgment. The agency’s conclusion was consistent with the long-standing rule that some very short expressions remain too slight to receive copyright protection.
Issue #5
Whether the Copyright Office improperly ignored the arrangement of the words and pictogram on the mug.
Holding
No. The Office considered the arrangement and reasonably found it insufficiently original.
Reasoning
A combination of individually unprotectable elements can qualify for copyright if those elements are selected, coordinated, or arranged in an original way. Thus, Ashton was correct that the Office had to consider the composition as a whole, not merely isolate each component.
The Office did so. It considered Ashton’s claim that positioning the middle-finger pictogram on the bottom of the mug, alongside the exterior phrase and interior word, created a three-dimensional poetic effect. It nevertheless found nothing inherently original in placing text and symbols on a mug and characterized the relationships among the elements as simplistic.
The court held that this conclusion was not arbitrary or capricious. The agency applied the proper legal rule for arrangement and gave a rational explanation for finding that Ashton’s particular arrangement did not transform unprotectable short text and a familiar symbol into a copyrightable literary work.