4 ms·
Here is an attempted translation from legalese. Company B scraped listings off of Company A's site, and published their own site based off of that data. Then
by btilly 8y ago
Here is an attempted translation from legalese.
Company B scraped listings off of Company A's site, and published their own site based off of that data. Then A sued on three grounds:
1. Company B's notices falsely claimed copyright to the listings.
2. Company B ignored company A's copyright notice.
3. Violation of the Lanham Act, which prevents people claiming something is from somewhere other than where it is when they sell it. (This is the interesting one.)
The court ruled as follows.
General copyright notices at the bottom of a web page claim copyright over the site as a whole and not to all of the data that may appear in the site. Therefore 1 fails because company B's notice is not claiming copyright. And 2 fails because A's notice was not specific enough to claim copyright.
As for 3, the fact that there is no physical product means that the precedent the Supreme Court set in the Darstar case applies - the Lanham act only applies to physical products.
I'm sure that I didn't get it quite right, but that version may be more readable than the original article.
- andjd 8y agoTo clarify, the Lantham act covers trademarks and unfair competition, not copyright. That makes the title of this blogpost confusing, because it seems to be conflating the copyright and trademark arguments that were both rejected.
- jrochkind1 8y agoTo be fair, the original case itself, and the law, are confusing before the blogpost/title even get to it. :) So the case in question was making separate copyright and trademark claims, and the court rejected _both_ of them, is that right?
- Novashi 8y agoSo if you have data that you can legitimately claim copyright to mixed with data that you can’t, how would you proceed?
- Retric 8y agoData and factual information, such as rainfall amounts, are not protected by copyright. This includes a lot of things like prices which seem to be creative endeavors making it somewhat confusing.
- baroffoos 8y agoI thought that collections of facts are still under copyright so things like Google Maps data is copyrighted even if the things in it are facts. You can create an identical copy as long as you verify and collect the facts yourself and if a mistake on google maps is found on another map then its obvious it was copied.
- fjsolwmv 8y agoNope. Facts are not copyrightable. You cns copy all of Google's factual map data, but you can't copy their artsy rendering of it in a picture.
- baroffoos 8y agoThen why is copying data from google maps absolutely banned for open street map editors? Also if google includes some fake data than thats not a fact and possibly a creative work.
- yellowbkpk 8y agoOSM editors are prevented from using Google Maps because OSM prefers that we have explicit permission to use data sources. Since we don't have explicit permission to use Google Maps, we can't use it. Separately, Google Maps has a terms of use that prevent reuse of Google Maps data. You agree to those terms when visiting Google Maps or using Google Maps API. You wouldn't be breaking copyright law when copying from Google Maps to OSM, you'd be breaking the terms of use contract with Google and community Norma expectations in OSM.
- devy 8y agoWhat's the precedent the Supreme Court set in the Darstar case?
- torstenvl 8y agoThe "origin" under the Lanham Act refers to the physical product. If I repackage a music CD pressed and published by Sony BMG and pass it off as my own, that could be a violation of the Lanham Act. If I copy the content but procure the media and press my own CDs, that cannot be a violation, because I, not Sony BMG, am the origin of the physical good. https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/539/23.html https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/539/23.html
- balfirevic 8y ago> And 2 fails because A's notice was not specific enough to claim copyright. What does that mean? I thought you possess copyright on your creation without needing specific copyright notices. And if some part of your website is not copyrightable, how would notice help? Additionally, if someone copies your work that you have copyright on, they are infringing even if there isn't any copyright notice. Are they not?
- caf 8y agoThe plaintiff wasn't claiming a copyright infringement, it was trying to claim specifically for removal of the copyright notice, which is a separate cause of action under the DMCA.
- balfirevic 8y agoRemoval of copyright notice from material that's not actually under copyright? I'm sorry if I'm not understanding something simple, I tried a quick google search and came up with this [0], but that seems to apply to cases where you remove copyright notice from copyrighted work. [0] - http://www.photolaw.net/did-someone-remove-the-copyright-notice-from-your-photograph.html http://www.photolaw.net/did-someone-remove-the-copyright-not...
- caf 8y agoIt appears that no argument was made as to whether the material was actually under copyright or not, because the plaintiff wasn't alleging copyright infringement. You could perhaps read into this that it was something of an ambit claim.
- kijin 8y agoI don't know exactly which website the case is about, but maybe the plaintiff couldn't claim copyright infringement because they don't own any copyright over the scraped content in the first place, i.e. the listings were posted by users.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y agoExcept that aggregated data can be treated as having a copyright. Why plaintiff didn't present that argument boggles the mind. Second rate lawyers there.
- fjsolwmv 8y agoMaybe the professionals know their job better than you do? Mere aggregations of facts are generally not copyrightable.
- TheOtherHobbes 8y agoBut unauthorised re-use can be challenged as misappropriation - effectively unfair competition. https://www.ipiustitia.com/2013/12/retrospective-passing-off-in-united.html https://www.ipiustitia.com/2013/12/retrospective-passing-off... Which does suggest the copyright angle really wasn't the best one to take. There may be a good reason why that didn't apply here, but - not being a lawyer - I don't know what it is.
- kbutler 8y agoBecause of the conflict between the public interest in allowing copying facts and the misappropriation doctrine, that doctrine is generally limited to "hot news", and citing the source is generally sufficient even there. The article you linked includes various restrictions on the doctrine: "highly time-sensitive", "in direct competition", "rend[ering] [the] publication profitless" The wikipedia page on the misappropriation doctrine has a various links and commentary about the narrowing of its application: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misappropriation_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misappropriation_doctrine Particularly, from the Second Circuit NBA vs Motorola (1997) "Such concepts are virtually synonymous for wrongful copying and are in no meaningful fashion distinguishable from infringement of a copyright." https://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/105_F3d_841.htm https://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/105_F3d_841.htm Other circuits have followed similar principles.
- polm23 8y agoAggregated data doesn't really have any copyright in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis_database_right https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sui_generis_database_right