One part of me says that the existing directory of [state] widget dealers is public record

So, the directory is one created by a government agency?

Since when are Yellow Pages created by government agencies? Did I miss something?

BTW, not all government records are in the public domain. A good (and controversal) example are electrical and building codes, which are typically created by industry associations and licensed to states and municipalities, and which require payment to the industry association for copies.

Irrespective of your misuse of the term "public record", this subject has been discussed here extensively in the past. (Take a look at the "Content, Writing, and Copyright" forum.) There have been high-profile court cases in this area, and to some degree support your position. The right place to inquire about this is with your attorney, not here.

If you can locate a government-provided directory, that might be fair game. If widget dealers are licensed, this might be an option. Make sure you read the fine print.

However, you did couch this as an "ethics question" rather than a "legal question". Do you really need to ask if it's ethical to copy somebody else's hard work?

There would be a case for breaching IP which could be brought by the Yellow Pages Directory locally.

Such a case was brought by Telstra [ major Telco ], owner of the Yellow Pages and Whitepages in Australia against a firm which re keyed in data from the telephone directory with cheap labor in the Philippines.

The data, called Green Pages, was widely distributed in the region with 3 CD's.
See:

DtMS v Telstra

[caslon.com.au...]

2002 Desktop Marketing Systems Pty Ltd v Telstra Corporation Limited - Federal Court decision and High Court decision about originality (protection for telephone alphabetical white pages and yellow pages directories). The Federal Court held that common law historically granted copyright in directory and other 'list' cases on the basis of sweat of the brow, irrespective of any "creative" element in arrangement/selection of the list.

It upheld Telstra's copyright in the directories on the basis of effort and expense in compilation, despite criticism by publisher Desktop Marketing Systems that there was no selective or creative effort and claims that Telstra's statutory obligation to compile the directories removed the incentive that is generally regarded as a public policy justification for recognition of copyright.

There are several other references online to this, but here is one: [findlaw.com.au...]

The principle applied is one of universal copyright and serves to show what a business will be up against if it relies on other's "sweat".

The business, which was long established was forced to close after 15 years or so in business.

If you are big enough or threaten a party where their intellectual property rights are going to be commercially compromised, you put your business at risk.

However, if you have a defense strategy to counteract this, i guess this is your choice.

Many firms do not respect copyright, making commerical decisions, and are large enough to outgun those they "steal" from. Some are very big names.

I don't like the ethic, but business isn't always fair.

[edited by: Whitey at 11:49 pm (utc) on April 19, 2007]

How do you think the people that have gathered all this info would feel if you were to do this directory with their data?
Personally speaking that would make me feel really bad. Check this site - [piercelaw.edu...]
you might wanna read about copyright and laws of copyright.

There's a fine point mentioned on the PierceLaw page:

Although email messages and web pages may enjoy copyright protection, rights are subject to several fundamental limits. For example, only expression is protected, not facts or ideas. Also, later works that merely happen to be very similar (or even identical) to earlier works do not infringe if they were, in fact, independently created. Sources of general information on those topics are listed below.

So according to that the facts - or information - in the lists isn't protected but how it's expressed is protected. Would that same information be available from different sources around?

BTW, "state" widget distributors doesn't really mean it's put out by a government agency. It means something like "California dog walkers" - just those within that particular state.