4 ms·

I guess one obvious question is do you have permission from the Dublin Bus company to use their data yourself? From their T&Cs (http://www.dublinbus.ie/en/Legal

by andywar 17y ago

I guess one obvious question is do you have permission from the Dublin Bus company to use their data yourself? From their T&Cs (http://www.dublinbus.ie/en/Legal/ http://www.dublinbus.ie/en/Legal/) ‘No part of this website may be copied, performed in public, broadcast or adapted without the prior written consent of Córas Iompair Éireann. All rights on this material are reserved.‘ Your own ‘scraping’ of the data is itself legally questionable.

mahmud 17y ago
That doesn't justify others stealing from him though.
- ErrantX 17y ago
  no, but it means he cant bring any action against the guy if he owns no IP on the content either. EDIT: except perhaps the database schema
  - andywar 17y ago
    And without those IP permissions in place, in the form of written approval by the bus company to use their data, he risks opening one almighty can of worms…
  - jcl 17y ago
    IANAL, but it is my understanding that you own the copyright on the modifications you make when creating a derivative work, regardless of whether or not the derivative work is itself a copyright violation.
    - xsmasher 17y ago
      But if the original work was a collection of facts that is not protected by copyright, then your derivative work might not be protected by copyright either. Lists of facts are not protected by copyright in the US.
      - fatdog789 17y ago
        List of facts are copyrightable in Europe, where this developer, his competitor, and the transit agency in question are located.
    - fatdog789 17y ago
      Last I checked, the UK was not part of the United States, so this discussion is irrelevant. Europe's laws on derivative works differ greatly from American laws.
    - joe_the_user 17y ago
      This is true but mostly an abuse of copyright protections in my opinion. Look at how Westlaw gained private control over the dissemination of public legal decisions through standardizing and copyrighting their presentation of those decisions. I happy see people lose at putting up copyright gates of this sort, whatever legal right they might have.
Padraig 17y ago
I was in contact with Dublin Bus during the development of the app. Sent them screenshots, etc. Anyone who responded thought it was a good idea, but passed me on to talk to someone else in the bureaucracy (it's a public company funded by the taxpayer). In the end, the leads fizzled out and I didn't get written permission to use the data from Dublin Bus. I continued to keep them up to date on it, hoping that they'd even call me up on it so that we could figure something out. My objective was to get at the data cleanly without having to scrape, and also to form a relationship that might allow me to use the upcoming real-time data. As I mentioned in the post, there was no app available for this before mine. Dublin Bus website is a mess (they've updated it in the last few months, but it's still awful) and it's particularly awkward to use on a small screen. They're a government owned company and others have pointed out that 'data' can't have a copyright, but I'm not really sure to be honest. I suspect they're aware of it and are choosing not to act since it's benefiting their service. I would argue that this is a different issue to what this other developer has done: He has taken my schema and my translation of the data which is my own original work.
- andywar 17y ago
  Two wrongs don’t make a right, but I agree you have done work that should be protectable. I commend you for approaching them, but you shouldn’t have given up. Without written agreement from bus company that you have permission it’s going to be very hard to go after him. Get that and you are golden. They have original creator rights and recourse for the way you extracted data without those permissions in place. http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1997/73032--c.htm#15 http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1997/73032--c.htm#15 While you could argue he has ripped you off, without that written permission to use the data you can’t effectively argue your case. I’d say your sin was less deliberate and more from a position of ignorance, but sadly in law that’s little defence. (IANAL, usual caveats apply. Seek legal advice, blah, blah.)
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- warp 17y ago
  Data doesn't have copyright, but in europe a database such as this is protected by the 96/9/EC Database Directive (most members states implemented this around 1999/2000). This includes non-electronic databases, so even if you scanned all this data from timetables published on paper, they'd still be protected by database rights -- and you don't have the right to use substantial parts of it without a license. (nor does your competitor). (Assuming a government organization has database rights in the same way a person or corporation can have them).
PatrickTulskie 17y ago
There was this whole thing with that here in NY with the MTA. They were claiming that their time tables are copyrighted, but after it went in/out of courts it was determined that only the complied versions are and then they opened up their data files for developers. The time a train arrives and departs does not fall under copyright. I'm not sure how things are in the UK but I'd expect them to be fairly similar.
- Padraig 17y ago
  Some lawyer friends have advised me of the same here in Ireland* I'd be happy to have someone with some authority in Dublin Bus even notice it though! * we're not in the UK ;)
  - ajtaylor 17y ago
    Semi-related: about a week after I had moved to Dublin from the US I made an offhand remark in a shop about being in the UK and was very quickly corrected. I quickly learned my lesson and have moved on to other cultural mistakes. :-)
  - PatrickTulskie 17y ago
    Haha sorry about that. I thought I saw someone else in the comments talking about the UK and got thrown off.
- andywar 17y ago
  Similar or not, a lot of very highly-paid lawyers would love to argue over this for weeks. My general argument is this whole situation is not as clear-cut and black-and-white as the developer in question asserts, however ‘moral’ or justified his objection to second developer’s seemingly less defensible actions in copying his work. There seems little ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ here, just very subtle shades of grey and legal interpretation of who owns which rights to various elements of data, code, design and structure.
- wendroid 17y ago
  Dublin is the capital city of Eire.

by andywar 17y ago

mahmud 17y ago

That doesn't justify others stealing from him though.

ErrantX 17y ago
no, but it means he cant bring any action against the guy if he owns no IP on the content either. EDIT: except perhaps the database schema
- andywar 17y ago
  And without those IP permissions in place, in the form of written approval by the bus company to use their data, he risks opening one almighty can of worms…
- jcl 17y ago
  IANAL, but it is my understanding that you own the copyright on the modifications you make when creating a derivative work, regardless of whether or not the derivative work is itself a copyright violation.
  - xsmasher 17y ago
    But if the original work was a collection of facts that is not protected by copyright, then your derivative work might not be protected by copyright either. Lists of facts are not protected by copyright in the US.
    - fatdog789 17y ago
      List of facts are copyrightable in Europe, where this developer, his competitor, and the transit agency in question are located.
  - fatdog789 17y ago
    Last I checked, the UK was not part of the United States, so this discussion is irrelevant. Europe's laws on derivative works differ greatly from American laws.
  - joe_the_user 17y ago
    This is true but mostly an abuse of copyright protections in my opinion. Look at how Westlaw gained private control over the dissemination of public legal decisions through standardizing and copyrighting their presentation of those decisions. I happy see people lose at putting up copyright gates of this sort, whatever legal right they might have.

Padraig 17y ago

I was in contact with Dublin Bus during the development of the app. Sent them screenshots, etc. Anyone who responded thought it was a good idea, but passed me on to talk to someone else in the bureaucracy (it's a public company funded by the taxpayer). In the end, the leads fizzled out and I didn't get written permission to use the data from Dublin Bus. I continued to keep them up to date on it, hoping that they'd even call me up on it so that we could figure something out. My objective was to get at the data cleanly without having to scrape, and also to form a relationship that might allow me to use the upcoming real-time data. As I mentioned in the post, there was no app available for this before mine. Dublin Bus website is a mess (they've updated it in the last few months, but it's still awful) and it's particularly awkward to use on a small screen. They're a government owned company and others have pointed out that 'data' can't have a copyright, but I'm not really sure to be honest. I suspect they're aware of it and are choosing not to act since it's benefiting their service. I would argue that this is a different issue to what this other developer has done: He has taken my schema and my translation of the data which is my own original work.

andywar 17y ago
Two wrongs don’t make a right, but I agree you have done work that should be protectable. I commend you for approaching them, but you shouldn’t have given up. Without written agreement from bus company that you have permission it’s going to be very hard to go after him. Get that and you are golden. They have original creator rights and recourse for the way you extracted data without those permissions in place. http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1997/73032--c.htm#15 http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1997/73032--c.htm#15 While you could argue he has ripped you off, without that written permission to use the data you can’t effectively argue your case. I’d say your sin was less deliberate and more from a position of ignorance, but sadly in law that’s little defence. (IANAL, usual caveats apply. Seek legal advice, blah, blah.)
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
warp 17y ago
Data doesn't have copyright, but in europe a database such as this is protected by the 96/9/EC Database Directive (most members states implemented this around 1999/2000). This includes non-electronic databases, so even if you scanned all this data from timetables published on paper, they'd still be protected by database rights -- and you don't have the right to use substantial parts of it without a license. (nor does your competitor). (Assuming a government organization has database rights in the same way a person or corporation can have them).

PatrickTulskie 17y ago

There was this whole thing with that here in NY with the MTA. They were claiming that their time tables are copyrighted, but after it went in/out of courts it was determined that only the complied versions are and then they opened up their data files for developers. The time a train arrives and departs does not fall under copyright. I'm not sure how things are in the UK but I'd expect them to be fairly similar.

Padraig 17y ago
Some lawyer friends have advised me of the same here in Ireland* I'd be happy to have someone with some authority in Dublin Bus even notice it though! * we're not in the UK ;)
- ajtaylor 17y ago
  Semi-related: about a week after I had moved to Dublin from the US I made an offhand remark in a shop about being in the UK and was very quickly corrected. I quickly learned my lesson and have moved on to other cultural mistakes. :-)
- PatrickTulskie 17y ago
  Haha sorry about that. I thought I saw someone else in the comments talking about the UK and got thrown off.
andywar 17y ago
Similar or not, a lot of very highly-paid lawyers would love to argue over this for weeks. My general argument is this whole situation is not as clear-cut and black-and-white as the developer in question asserts, however ‘moral’ or justified his objection to second developer’s seemingly less defensible actions in copying his work. There seems little ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ here, just very subtle shades of grey and legal interpretation of who owns which rights to various elements of data, code, design and structure.
wendroid 17y ago
Dublin is the capital city of Eire.