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I've pulled the court documents via Bloomberg Law. The issue at hand is that Astrolabe owns copyright to the "ACS Atlas", consisting of both the "ACS Internatio
by apaprocki 15y ago
I've pulled the court documents via Bloomberg Law. The issue at hand is that Astrolabe owns copyright to the "ACS Atlas", consisting of both the "ACS International Atlas" and the "ACS American Atlas". Olson tz files specifically reference the "ACS Atlas" as a source for some tz data and allegedly incorrectly asserts that it is in the public domain. They sent a takedown notice in May 2011 and it was ignored. The FTP site is listed in the court filing and they are requesting a temporary injunction, a permanent injunction, and award of damages and attorney fees.
EDIT: The registered copyright they're referring to is here:
http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?Search_Arg=tx0002101059&Search_Code=REGS&CNT=25&HIST=1 http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?Search_Arg=tx...
- RexRollman 15y agoI can understand that Astrolabe would be irritated about it, as it probably took a lot time and effort to get the information, but I don't see how that makes the information itself copyrightable.
- manuscreationis 15y agoThanks for digging into this!
- gst 15y agoCan you copyright tz data at all? This has nothing to do with "creative" work, but is simply a (pre-existing) mapping between countries, dates, and offsets.
- aaronsw 15y agoNo, you can't -- the Supreme Court in 1991 ruled that even wholesale copying of a telephone book was legal, because you can't copyright facts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_v._Rural https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_v._Rural
- thwarted 15y agoAren't timezone delineations and values set through legal means anyway? Does it even make sense that the specifics in a law can be copyrighted?
- apaprocki 15y agoTheir complaint points out that not all historical timezones used in practice are actually defined by law.
- acqq 15y agoThe relevant quotes in tzdata are in the files (tzcode and tzdata are public domain): northamerica: # From Paul Eggert (2006-03-22): # A good source for time zone historical data in the US is # Thomas G. Shanks, The American Atlas (5th edition), # San Diego: ACS Publications, Inc. (1991). # Make sure you have the errata sheet; the book is somewhat useless without it. # It is the source for most of the pre-1991 US entries below. europe: # From Paul Eggert (2006-03-22): # A good source for time zone historical data outside the U.S. is # Thomas G. Shanks and Rique Pottenger, The International Atlas (6th edition), # San Diego: ACS Publications, Inc. (2003). As far as I know, even if the book is copyrighted, the raw information contained in it shouldn't be?
- jellicle 15y ago> the raw information contained in it shouldn't be? That's correct. Supreme Court decision. Said decision is the reason why you occasionally read news articles about the U.S. considering some form of database protection laws - to make those databases protectable under law (and therefore to make this lawsuit legitimate).
- rickmb 15y agoMost European nations have database protection laws. Although limited in scope and doesn't prevent you from compiling an identical database from other sources, it has insane side-effects. In the Netherlands for instance, the zip-code database is copyright protected.
- joelhaasnoot 15y agoAs is the train timetable info for the bizarre reason to block competition for a new tender.
- strictfp 15y agoSo that's why the journey planners in NL are a complete fail (ns, 9292ov). Always wondered, since NL is quite up to date in general when it comes to IT.
- fleitz 15y agoDoesn't the factual nature of the data prevent it from being subject to copyright law?