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by mthoms 2137 days ago
I think we agree. If the numbers required actual research they should be copyright-able.
2 comments

I'm not sure about that; the mass of the moon to more decimal places would surely require actual research potentially at great expense, but the resulting number shouldn't be copyrightable since the resulting number is a fact about nature.
If each entry was individually researched by a person that made judgements by weighing various sources of information against each other to arrive at an estimate, then yes I think they'd have a pretty strong legal argument.
Amusingly, the reality that their net worth figures are (for the most part) made up works to their advantage here.