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“Public data” is not a legal term w.r.t. copyright. If the work is not in the public domain you cannot just use it for whatever reason you want. You must get pe

“Public data” is not a legal term w.r.t. copyright. If the work is not in the public domain you cannot just use it for whatever reason you want. You must get permission from the author. Second, code is not data, it is a copyright-protected creative work. It’s really hard not to see this as him erasing the rights of individual developers for his own benefit.

denton-scratch 5y ago
> code is not data IANAL. I don't know if that distinction exists in law. But it doesn't make sense to me. How do you distinguish code from data? Isn't the whole point of code that it is treated (by the machine) as both code and data? Suppose I make a "copyright-protected creative work", for example a melody, and then encode that as a database table? Suppose I have a list of population statistics? Suppose those population statistics have been ingeniously contrived (e.g. by encoding, ordering or whatever), so that given the right interpreter or compiler, the logic of a copyright software work can be replicated exactly, using the list as code? It's hard to imagine a list of statistics that can be read by a human as easily as he can read code; but that doesn't matter. It's hard to read machine-code too; but copying machine-code without permission is infringing. It doesn't help that copyright law has drifted over the years, and that despite international conventions, the law varies from place to place. USA and EU see copyright differently. Commenters here are not declaring whose copyright law they are referring to.
- CyberRabbi 5y ago
  > IANAL. I don't know if that distinction exists in law. It does. Data is not copyright-able but source code is. There is so much legal precedence around this it’s nearly impossible to contest. Calling code data is a way to minimize its status as a copyright protected creative work, so as to defend ignoring the protections it has under the law.

denton-scratch 5y ago

> code is not data IANAL. I don't know if that distinction exists in law. But it doesn't make sense to me. How do you distinguish code from data? Isn't the whole point of code that it is treated (by the machine) as both code and data? Suppose I make a "copyright-protected creative work", for example a melody, and then encode that as a database table? Suppose I have a list of population statistics? Suppose those population statistics have been ingeniously contrived (e.g. by encoding, ordering or whatever), so that given the right interpreter or compiler, the logic of a copyright software work can be replicated exactly, using the list as code? It's hard to imagine a list of statistics that can be read by a human as easily as he can read code; but that doesn't matter. It's hard to read machine-code too; but copying machine-code without permission is infringing. It doesn't help that copyright law has drifted over the years, and that despite international conventions, the law varies from place to place. USA and EU see copyright differently. Commenters here are not declaring whose copyright law they are referring to.

CyberRabbi 5y ago
> IANAL. I don't know if that distinction exists in law. It does. Data is not copyright-able but source code is. There is so much legal precedence around this it’s nearly impossible to contest. Calling code data is a way to minimize its status as a copyright protected creative work, so as to defend ignoring the protections it has under the law.