I thought that Feist v. Rural Telephone (1991) established that 'sweat of the brow doctrine' was not grounds for copyright. Should I assume that the person who claimed copyright here was incorrect in making the claim?
To be sure, the requisite level of creativity is
extremely low; even a slight amount will suffice.
The vast majority of works make the grade quite easily,
as they possess some creative spark, "no matter how crude,
humble or obvious" it might be.
Formatting can have sufficient creativity to qualify for copyright. Such copyright will only cover the formatting, not the underlying text. If someone were to take just the text, and format it themselves (by hand or by script), that should be OK.
Taking his exact e-text formatting? I don't know. Without comparing the originals to his version, I have no idea if his formatting was obvious and mechanical, or if it required creativity.
I personally don't think there's creativity in this expression.
If there is, then the flip side is that I change the format even slightly then it's also creative, and the underlying facts are not covered under copyright.