On Fri, Nov 14, 2008 at 04:32:57PM -0500, R E Sieber wrote: <Snip> None of this is likely to be new to anyone participating in this discussion. In fact, much of it isn't even relevant to at least some of the participants: we no longer live in a US-only world, and any of us working on the web have to at least be thinking of a world wider than Rural v. Feist.
> Finally, ownership is not the same as copyright. If you want ownership > then you have to apply for a copyright. Probably what you mean is does > Google (or the remote sensing companes) own the map/data or can my > effort put it into the public domain? Yes, "ownership" isn't really a relevant term here. However, I don't understand your claim that you have t "apply for a copyright" if you want ownership. Any work that I create is copyright to me, implicitly -- so long as I'm doing it legally (not violating the copyright of someone else in doing so). > Ultimately, with copyright law, it's an issue of lawyering up. If an > entity wanted to contest your ownership, whether or not it has a case, > it can. Sadly, even lawyering up doesn't actually help until people start suing other people over this stuff. > BTW, the last word on copyright law (US, Canada and elsewhere) is > Michael Geist, at the U Ottawa. The last word on copyright law for > spatial data and output is Harlan Onsrud, at U Maine Orono. I'd've thought the last word on copyright law in the US would be the Supreme Court. :p Regards, -- Christopher Schmidt MetaCarta _______________________________________________ Geowanking mailing list [email protected] http://geowanking.org/mailman/listinfo/geowanking_geowanking.org
