On Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 12:31 AM, 80n <80n...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 4:17 PM, Eugene Alvin Villar <sea...@gmail.com> > wrote: >> >> On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 6:00 AM, Ed Avis <e...@waniasset.com> wrote: >> > I see that you and Frederik disagreed here. (FWIW I think he is right - >> > a PNG >> > file can clearly be seen as a database of pixel values. It is an image >> > too, >> > and perhaps even a map or a photograph, but legally it would be hard to >> > argue >> > that it *not* a database.) >> >> Taking this argument to its logical conclusion, every digital file is >> a database of bytes and thus everything you create digitally from any >> ODbL database is a derived database and not a produced work. >> >> This seems silly. >> >> The European definition of a database is "a collection of independent >> works, data or other materials arranged in a systematic or methodical >> way and individually accessible by electronic or other means". >> >> Individual pixels comprising a typical image (say a PNG map tile) are >> not independent works. Each pixel cannot stand on its own and aren't >> useful unless considered together with its neighboring pixels to form >> an image. >> > Pixels may not be independent works but I think they might be "data or other > materials", in which case they are covered by that definition. > > The nearest thing we've got to a good definition of this is that if you use > it like a database then it is a database. Whether the courts would agree > with that definition remains to be tested, but much discussion here has not > yet arrived at anything better.
I think the word "independent" also applies to "data" and "other materials". _______________________________________________ legal-talk mailing list legal-talk@openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/legal-talk
