On 16 July 2010 17:11, Rob Myers <[email protected]> wrote: > > Science Commons seem to think copyright doesn't apply to databases, OKFN > seem to think it might. I'm erring on the side of caution. If you can > provide any clearer guidance I'd be very grateful. :-)
You might want to read the Supreme Court decision in Feist and subsequent cases: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications_v._Rural_Telephone_Service is a wikipedia summary (though you should read the case law if you want to really understand the issues involved). The key point is that merely having invested a lot of effort in collecting information is not sufficient on its own to make that information subject to copyright. How this would fit in with OSM would depend a great deal on what it was that you were protecting. In the EU/EEA copyright certainly does attach to a database as a result of the database directive (96/9/EC): http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31996L0009:EN:HTML But there is quite a high threshold for protection since there is a requirement that databases so protected "by reason of the selection or arrangement of their contents, constitute the author's own intellectual creation". There is some recent litigation in the English High Court as to whether football fixtures lists are subject to database copyright. In the EU/EEA we also have a database right which is different (a form of IP in databases separate from copyright) which is more closely linked to the amount of work/investment in a database, but it is not entirely straightforward. For example football fixtures lists aren't so protected (because the leagues are creating them anyway as a part of running a football league). In Australia, there was an important decision last year in the High Court involving TV schedules: http://www.copyright.org.au/news/news_items/cases-news/2009-cases/u29768/ Its quite subtle but it represents (in my view) a rejection that mere investment or effort in creating a collection of information is enough to give copyright protection, which would make mere data not protectable. Sorry to but in (as an outsider) with my legal half-pennyworth but I hope it is some help. As a copyright lawyer this is all very fascinating intellectually, but extremely difficult when it comes to advising clients. -- Francis Davey _______________________________________________ legal-talk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
