Talk:Forbes 500
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[edit] Copyright Infringement
Pakaran. thought that the list of Forbes 500 companies (originally here, now at List of Forbes 500 might be copyrighted.
But since the list was created by taking certain facts (not copyrightable) ordering them by size (obvious ordering) and giving each company a rank for each factor (a simple fact from its placement in the list). Then, for each company, they summed the rank in each factor (again, a fact), ordered the result by size, took the top 500, and then putting them in alphabetical order (obvious ordering). The result is not copyrightable under Feist v. Rural Telephone Service.
There are some theories that Forbes might have something here that's copyrightable (because they chose what factors to weigh and how to define them), but this seems unlikely, and Forbes is also unlikely to mind much.
I'd like to see this contain the merged alphabetic list of all 824 in the individual top 500s, since that's really a better indication of the companies which we should cover first and this list already doesn't give the actual ranks. That happens to be more assuredly safe on the copyright side as well, so it would be good all around, IMO. Jamesday 04:21, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I double-checked this using the list available by clicking on rank here. The list is no more than the list formed by adding the ranks in the four public domain lists and sorting by lowest total score. Since that's the first way that I thought of doing it myself, I don't think it passes the creativity test. Jamesday 04:48, 16 Feb 2004
(In any event, it should be cleaned up, and we should incorporate (if we can) some of the other lists (e.g. all the US dollar billionaires in the world, etc). [1] Pakaran. 04:54, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)
[edit] List
Why not have the top 100 in each category - could be something this simple:
BTW Forbes doesn't give the actual number for anything except employees. Ford, which ranked fifth in employees, doesn't make top 500 in profits (they may have taken a loss, or most of those employees may be in sales).
Note that in my list above, I pipe-linked those for which our articles use different names. Pakaran. 00:30, 25 Feb 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Still published?
"The Forbes 500 is an annual listing of the top 500 American companies produced by Forbes Magazine"
- I don't think it's being published anymore. The 2003 list for 2002 was the last one it seems.--Jerryseinfeld 01:57, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I received my copy in the mail this past April (2005).
