Swedish Police Shoe Database May Tread On Copyright 156
An anonymous reader writes "The Swedish police, who have been instrumental in various raids against file-sharing sites, may have a bit of a piracy problem on their own hands. It seems they wanted to put together a database of shoe print information for matching crime scene shoe prints to particular shoe types. To do so, they used images found online, and some Swedish copyright experts have noted that this appears to violate Swedish copyright law. The police claim there's an exception for police investigations, but people (and some shoe companies) are pointing out that creating a database isn't about an investigation."
Re:Process (Score:1, Informative)
UK copyright law has an exemption for anything involve the justice system (including police activities). I'd be very surprised if other countries didn't have similar provisions. Otherwise you'd get the ridiculous situation of criminals suing the police for copyright violation when they took copies of evidence.
This is very likely a non-story.
Re:Compilation of facts are protected (Score:5, Informative)
As far as I can tell from the article no shoe company has complained. It appears that some professor has merely speculated that the database may infringe copyrights.
I agree with the suggestion that they would get better quality data by working with the manufacturers, though.
Re:Compilation of facts are protected (Score:3, Informative)
You've gotten used to the laissez faire form of copyright we all live with in the modern world where digital duplication is effortless and has no direct cost. A strict reading of copyright law indicates that any unauthorized copying outside the protections of fair use (excerpts, parody, etc.) is a violation even if you don't engage in distribution.
This is why the AHRA was put in place in the US for the narrow scope of personal music copying. Essentially, enough Congresspeople got upset about the implication that their personal mix tapes in the 80's were a violation of copyright that they created a little loophole to shut up the RIAA.
Re:Compilation of facts are protected (Score:1, Informative)
When was the last time someone tried to sell you a picture of a shoe?
Today [corbisimages.com].