Australian Judge Rules Facts Cannot Be Copyrighted 234
nfarrell writes "Last week, an Australian Judge ruled that copyright laws do not apply to collections of facts, regardless of the amount of effort that was spent collecting them. In this case, the case surrounded the reproduction of entries from the White and Yellow Pages, but the ruling referred to a previous case involving IceTV, which republishes TV guides. Does this mean that other databases of facts, such as financial data, are also legally able to be copied and redistributed?" Here are analyses from a former legal adviser to the directory publisher which prevailed as the defendant in this case, and from Smart Company.
Re:Settled law in the United States (Score:3, Insightful)
Interesting. So the publication of facts is uncopyrightable.
If I really wanted to go to extremes, could I demand that documentaries, photographs, or other representations of "facts" as being uncopyrightable as well?
I'm really just confused as to what extent we can classify things as facts or not facts.
Re:Settled law in the United States (Score:5, Insightful)
To give a not-yet-litigated example of what I think would be the 3d analogy: A 3d model exactly capturing the surface of the Washington Monument is not copyrightable, because it's mere facts. However, particular photographs or films of the Washington Monument are copyrightable, as they have creative presentation. However (again), someone who collected a bunch of photographs or films of it and extracted a 3d model [washington.edu] of the Washington Monument from them, would not be violating the copyright on the photographs or films, because they were merely copying the facts (the 3d spatial position of the stones).
Re:Settled law in the United States (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a nice try, but you are trying to define a fact based on some copyrighted work. While meta-logic tricks might seem like a nice way around for a geek, for a lawyer they are simply a violation of copyright.
Re:US Law (Score:3, Insightful)
You're playing fast and loose with the definition of a fact. If you take your attempt here, then nothing is copyrightable, because it is a "fact" that the writing on the pages of this particular book are what they are, therefor nothing is copyrightable.
You can't just meta factualise the entire universe and render copyright law null.
Re:Trivial Pursuit (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, as long as you don't mention the trademarked term "Trivial Pursuit" anywhere.
Re:Settled law in the United States (Score:3, Insightful)
On a related note, courts tend to take a rather dim view of people trying to take the piss and exploit clever word play to try to get around a law like that. It also takes you well out of "I'm sorry, I didn't realise it was wrong..." and squarely into culpable intent territory, which is likely to up the consequences to the higher end of the scale.
(Note: of course, IANAL)
Re:US Law (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm using the normal, everyday definition of a fact. If the legal definition of a fact is different, that definition should be stated somewhere.
For example, say I'm creative when naming my child, can I then sue the phone book company for copyright infringement when it lists the name?
Re:Settled law in the United States (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't that essentially the "sweat of the brow" [wikipedia.org] argument U.S. copyright law explicitly rejected? The mere fact that it takes a lot of effort to compile some facts doesn't make them copyrightable.
(And in any case, it actually isn't very expensive to crowdsource a 3d model of a whole city [washington.edu].)
Re:Settled law in the United States (Score:3, Insightful)
The arrangement of 3D data is neither "simple" nor "obvious" for the reasons I already stated. If you disagree ask an average adult to create a 3D model of a building.
An exact model would contain no creative component. Especially considering that said arrangement of 3D data is going to be in some standardized format which is the 3D equivalent of alphabetizing a list of names.
Re:How about databases? (Score:3, Insightful)
As an SQL programmer, I can vouch for "sweat of the brow" personally. Is there a ruling that DB4 code is worth more than SQL because of the extra amount of grief that went into debugging it?
Re:Settled law in the United States (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How about databases? (Score:4, Insightful)
Bear in mind that even if copyright law provides no protection to databases, a database owner can still choose to only allow you access to their database under a license that prohibits you from reselling the information (and I believe many large database owners do just this). So, what you can't enforce through copyright law you probably could enforce through contract law.
(I am a law student, not a lawyer)
Re:Settled law in the United States (Score:3, Insightful)
If such a test were implemented for software patents I would be a happy camper. There are so many software patents that are merely digital adaptations of things invented long ago, or mere incremental progression from existing software that I just don't think they should be patentable.
Only true innovation should be patentable, software or otherwise.