4 ms·

Isn't all telemetry data currently copyrighted? Streetview? Pictures of a street? Satellite images? Why would it be public domain? Honest question, I'm not un

Isn't all telemetry data currently copyrighted? Streetview? Pictures of a street? Satellite images? Why would it be public domain? Honest question, I'm not understanding how telemetry data is different than airborne laser scanner data, Streetview, map data, satellite pictures, etc. Or even server logs generated by an iPhone for Apple, Tesla's car data logs, etc.

scotty79 8y ago
> Why would it be public domain? Not sure if that's the case but they do not have element of creativity. They just copy real world so why would they deserve any monopoly?
- yorwba 8y ago
  The EU apparently has copyright-like protections for databases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis_database_right https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis_database_right
- DannyBee 8y ago
  EU has "sweat of the brow" doctrine, US does not.
  - airstrike 8y ago
    Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj9NJZUomjQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj9NJZUomjQ
- ucaetano 8y ago
  Even copying the real world is copyrightable. If you take a picture of a street, you own the copyright to it. Shouldn't you? PS: Not including the weird exceptions in the EU of monuments and such.
  - wmf 8y ago
    There's some precedent in the US that "factual" photographs that have no creative element are not copyrightable. In practice, I think various contracts and EULAs will override copyright questions anyway.
  - beefield 8y ago
    > Shouldn't you? Somehow I have thought that monopolies are so generally accepted as harmful, that it would be the proponents of monopolies that have the burden of proof. Not the ones who oppose monopolies. So instead of just assuming that copyrights are good for society, can you provide some evidence?
    - ucaetano 8y ago
      Copyright of a picture of a street isn't a monopoly on that street, you can head over there and take a picture of the street yourself. Other than that, just thing of photographers who spend their life working on photography. Copyright allows them to charge for their work, or for a software developer to charge for their work. Removing copyright entirely means you can only monetize your work based on the marginal cost, the result is zero monetization for any type of work that has near-zero marginal cost, such as a book, movies, photography, etc. Sure, you can argue that we should move to the fairyland dream scenario where everyone is beautifully funded by fans and so on. We've been there, it was how art in the Middle Ages worked. Anyway, that is a separate discussion: 1) Given that copyright exists, should X be copyrightable? 2) Should copyright exist?
adrr 8y ago
Bigger question as mentioned in the article. Who owns the copyright? If I bought a car, I should own all the data from it.
- mindslight 8y ago
  Sure, but you're also party to an adhesion contract where you're forced to surrender that ownership to the manufacturer. As Coase pointed out, the initial allocation doesn't matter so much as the market will get it to whomever can best exploit it. The liability is in carving out a market-legible ownership handle to begin with. But copyright is likely moot anyway, as the cars will be imprisoned [0] with strong digital restrictions to siphon the data to manufacturers while preventing access by people. [0] The complement of "jailbreak", right?
  - PeterisP 8y ago
    EU laws in general are quite hostile to adhesion contracts - pretty much all terms that where a consumer is forced to surrender something meaningful to use a product they bought are considered null and void in EU. If customer is shown a common EULA stating "you surrender copyright of these things to the manufacturer" and needs to click "I agree" before proceeding, then in EU that does not imply any legally binding commitment whatsoever and does not imply that the consumer surrendered those rights; if they were forced to do so in a standartized mandatory agreement, then that doesn't count.
- eponeponepon 8y ago
  You won't be buying any cars in future...
shmerl 8y ago
Facts aren't supposed to be copyrightable. They aren't creative works.
- ucaetano 8y ago
  Telemetry isn't facts. Taking a picture of something isn't a fact.
  - shmerl 8y ago
    Telemetry is simply gathering of factual information. And it's not produced by a human. There is no copyright for something produced by machines or animals, so far. You can consider copyrightability of something produced by intelligent machine (human like), but that's a whole topic in itself and not even the case here.
    - robin_reala 8y ago
      The “animals can’t hold copyright in the US” principle was reaffirmed recently in the monkey selfie case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...
    - NeutronStar 8y ago
      So no photo is ever copyrightable?
    - ucaetano 8y ago
      You can own copyright on a dataset of facts. A map is a dataset of facts. The MLB stats are a dataset of facts. Copyright doesn't mean that you can't create a work that is similar based on the same facts, it just means that to do so you can't copy the original work. You can create a new map of the streets, but you can't just do so by copying an existing map (with the exception of certain licenses and so on).
  - sorokod 8y ago
    What and odd thing to say: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fact https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fact
another-cuppa 8y ago
> Why would it be public domain? Copyright is supposed to protect creative works. There is such a thing as a threshold of originality. There are database rights, but that is separate from copyright.
quotemstr 8y ago
Doesn't Feist preclude copyrighting raw data that wasn't created through some creative spark? That's in the US, granted, but I'd hope similar principles would apply in other jurisdictions.
kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
Telemetry from a car is a side effect from using it rather than an intended product.
- ucaetano 8y ago
  Quite the opposite. Telemetry data is an intended product, because it allows for improvements to the underlying product and much more (such as mapping, for example). Think of it as Google Analytics. If you run a site and use Google Analytics on it, do you own the copyright of the data generated by it?

scotty79 8y ago

> Why would it be public domain? Not sure if that's the case but they do not have element of creativity. They just copy real world so why would they deserve any monopoly?

yorwba 8y ago
The EU apparently has copyright-like protections for databases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis_database_right https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis_database_right
DannyBee 8y ago
EU has "sweat of the brow" doctrine, US does not.
- airstrike 8y ago
  Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj9NJZUomjQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj9NJZUomjQ
ucaetano 8y ago
Even copying the real world is copyrightable. If you take a picture of a street, you own the copyright to it. Shouldn't you? PS: Not including the weird exceptions in the EU of monuments and such.
- wmf 8y ago
  There's some precedent in the US that "factual" photographs that have no creative element are not copyrightable. In practice, I think various contracts and EULAs will override copyright questions anyway.
- beefield 8y ago
  > Shouldn't you? Somehow I have thought that monopolies are so generally accepted as harmful, that it would be the proponents of monopolies that have the burden of proof. Not the ones who oppose monopolies. So instead of just assuming that copyrights are good for society, can you provide some evidence?
  - ucaetano 8y ago
    Copyright of a picture of a street isn't a monopoly on that street, you can head over there and take a picture of the street yourself. Other than that, just thing of photographers who spend their life working on photography. Copyright allows them to charge for their work, or for a software developer to charge for their work. Removing copyright entirely means you can only monetize your work based on the marginal cost, the result is zero monetization for any type of work that has near-zero marginal cost, such as a book, movies, photography, etc. Sure, you can argue that we should move to the fairyland dream scenario where everyone is beautifully funded by fans and so on. We've been there, it was how art in the Middle Ages worked. Anyway, that is a separate discussion: 1) Given that copyright exists, should X be copyrightable? 2) Should copyright exist?

adrr 8y ago

Bigger question as mentioned in the article. Who owns the copyright? If I bought a car, I should own all the data from it.

mindslight 8y ago
Sure, but you're also party to an adhesion contract where you're forced to surrender that ownership to the manufacturer. As Coase pointed out, the initial allocation doesn't matter so much as the market will get it to whomever can best exploit it. The liability is in carving out a market-legible ownership handle to begin with. But copyright is likely moot anyway, as the cars will be imprisoned [0] with strong digital restrictions to siphon the data to manufacturers while preventing access by people. [0] The complement of "jailbreak", right?
- PeterisP 8y ago
  EU laws in general are quite hostile to adhesion contracts - pretty much all terms that where a consumer is forced to surrender something meaningful to use a product they bought are considered null and void in EU. If customer is shown a common EULA stating "you surrender copyright of these things to the manufacturer" and needs to click "I agree" before proceeding, then in EU that does not imply any legally binding commitment whatsoever and does not imply that the consumer surrendered those rights; if they were forced to do so in a standartized mandatory agreement, then that doesn't count.
eponeponepon 8y ago
You won't be buying any cars in future...

shmerl 8y ago

Facts aren't supposed to be copyrightable. They aren't creative works.

ucaetano 8y ago
Telemetry isn't facts. Taking a picture of something isn't a fact.
- shmerl 8y ago
  Telemetry is simply gathering of factual information. And it's not produced by a human. There is no copyright for something produced by machines or animals, so far. You can consider copyrightability of something produced by intelligent machine (human like), but that's a whole topic in itself and not even the case here.
  - robin_reala 8y ago
    The “animals can’t hold copyright in the US” principle was reaffirmed recently in the monkey selfie case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie_copyright_disput...
  - NeutronStar 8y ago
    So no photo is ever copyrightable?
  - ucaetano 8y ago
    You can own copyright on a dataset of facts. A map is a dataset of facts. The MLB stats are a dataset of facts. Copyright doesn't mean that you can't create a work that is similar based on the same facts, it just means that to do so you can't copy the original work. You can create a new map of the streets, but you can't just do so by copying an existing map (with the exception of certain licenses and so on).
- sorokod 8y ago
  What and odd thing to say: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fact https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/fact

another-cuppa 8y ago

> Why would it be public domain? Copyright is supposed to protect creative works. There is such a thing as a threshold of originality. There are database rights, but that is separate from copyright.

quotemstr 8y ago

Doesn't Feist preclude copyrighting raw data that wasn't created through some creative spark? That's in the US, granted, but I'd hope similar principles would apply in other jurisdictions.

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago

Telemetry from a car is a side effect from using it rather than an intended product.

ucaetano 8y ago
Quite the opposite. Telemetry data is an intended product, because it allows for improvements to the underlying product and much more (such as mapping, for example). Think of it as Google Analytics. If you run a site and use Google Analytics on it, do you own the copyright of the data generated by it?