Newspaper Articles Not Copyrightable In Slovakia 86
Yenya writes "In Slovakia, newspaper articles can be freely aggregated and archived, and are not worth copyright protection. The district court in Bratislava, Slovakia, stated in the case between news publishing house Ecopress and a news monitoring company Storin, that while the news articles manifests traces of creativity, it is not enough to be considered worth protecting the authors rights (English translation)."
Re:First! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:In Slovakia.... (Score:5, Funny)
You sure? These comments are original works of me, my opinion, my creation.
You have to see the difference between information and creation. That Hydrogen is the lightest element in the periodic table is not copyrightable. It's information. Even if I create an elaborate statement that culminates in its essence in this and little else, there's no chance that I'll retain copyright of it. Because the main part of what I created is still just the information that hydrogen is the element with the least mass.
A fantasy story about various atoms coming together and having a party, while playing puns on their weight and some of their properties (and look how fat uranium looks, any more yellow cake and she's gonna blow!) is a different matter. That IS copyrightable.
Does this mean I can't use the quote button?
Because they aren't worth it (Score:2, Funny)
The more likely explanation is that they are not worth protecting, because their quality is so low. Journalism is a dying art. Newspapers consist of poorly translated blurbs from AP/AFP/Reuters. With a population of 5 million, Slovakia does not receive much attention from the foreign press, and the only case where I've seen local reporters get to the bottom of an issue are in a few consumer-protection issues. Never in other important fields like science, politics, etc. But who cares. Most people just want a tabloid, and that's what they get.
I get better news coverage here on Slashdot than from Slovakian newspaper articles.
I'm sure you will be more than happy if my edit gets voted to +5. Now imagine if you were a professional, and had your text stolen. Still think it shouldn't be copyrightable?
Re:In Slovakia.... (Score:5, Funny)
You seem confused. The copyright of facts and the copyright of newspaper articles are two distinct things.
That may indeed be true in the US, where "facts" and "newspaper articles" definitely are two distinct things most of the time.