Re: Oh please oh please oh pleeeease

Jerry Stuckle wrote:
Csaba Gabor wrote:
Jerry Stuckle wrote:

Kenneth Downs wrote:

Jerry Stuckle wrote:


Additionally, do you have permission from EBay to use their information
in this way? All of it is copyrighted, and using it without their
permission can get you and the developer in a lot of trouble. Of

Hmmm, I would wonder about the distinction between their HTML pages and the
data points.

Copying an entire page and displaying it as part of your business would
definitely be a violation. Oh, except for google does that, um, they do it
actually with the entire internet. There have been a few high-profile
cases of people objecting, but by-and-large it seems to go forward.

Ras is talking about gathering data points that they have made public. I
would bet (of course IANAL) that he is ok until he starts thinking about
going public. Then he will have to acknowledge the source of the data and
obtain some kind of understanding.


But EBay is also a data collection - and that collection is copyrighted,
also. You can't make use of the collection without their approval, even
if you do just excerpt data and use the data in another way.


Copyright applies only to presentation (of data, et. al.) and not to
data itself. There was a case way back when where Ma Bell sued some
upstart for trying to make their own yellow pages and the argument was
that the information was copyrighted. I seem to recollect that the
decision went against Ma Bell (AT&T) because they could only claim
copyright on their particular presentation. If the data was presented
another way (for example, reordered by first name) then there was no
protection.


That's where you're wrong. The data itself can also be copyrighted, as
when it is part of a collection. I suggest you check your sources
again. There have been many claims won because the data itself was used
without permission.

Evidently, I was right (except that it was white pages). It was a 1991
Supreme Court decision (Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone
Service) that is alluded to here:
http://www.eff.org/IP/WIPO/?f=cpt_wipo_treaty-primer.txt
That page is basically documenting a reaction to the decision wherein
WIPO is trying to get the US to sign exactly the kind of treaty
extending to database protections that you suggest is in place.

Could you cite a link or two about claims being won because data itself
was being used without permission, where there was no user agreement
not to use the data? That would be very informative.

At the same time, I seem to remember that the case above has been
superceded or its precedent has been mollified by subsequent cases, but
I don't remember how.

I'd suggest you get a copyright attorney to give you the real facts,
instead of maybe remembering something which may or may not be correct.

When/if I encounter a situation where I need one.
In this thread, we're discussing our own understandings as non lawyers.
And citing information to the extent possible, right?

To that end, here is a 'recent' summary (upshot: copyright law does not
protect data in databases) by the EFF about the state of affairs in
2004:
http://www.eff.org/IP/WIPO/20040607_database_protection.pdf
which link I found at:
http://www.eff.org/IP/WIPO/?f=archive.html
Actually, two years is a long time on this front. More recent info
would be welcome.

Another case of data vs. presentation is the data points of the
boundaries between countries, states, counties, etc. A map is
copyrighted because it is a presentation of the underlying data points.
However, are those data points public domain? If you look at the
agreement that you have to sign with the various map companies on the
internet, they all say that you agree not to republish the underlying
data points in any form. Thus, it is not a question of copyright, it
truly is a question of user agreement.

Yes, the data points are public domain. And yes, it is a matter of
copyright. If not, they would have no grounds to stand on to require
such an agreement. Someone could easily sue to them to provide the
information.

This is actually a fascinating area, but its own separate thread.

I'd be at least somewhat worried in the original poster's place. I
don't see an issue of his copying pages (by the way, when I say
copying, I am thinking that what the OP is doing is extracting the
relevant data from the given pages and saving only that - why waste
extra bytes? - and plus you need extracted data to be able to work with
it) - to this point, it's all research. When he starts thinking about
publishing the data (I presume he's not republishing the pages. If he
does, he does have copyright issues) in a for sale book, then I think
it's important to do very careful legal research.

And even for personal use it is liable to be a copyright violation. I
would NOT want eBay's attorneys gaffer me.

The Weather Channel is another data collection. The current temperature
is public data - available for free from the National Weather Service.
You cannot, for instance, collect hourly temperature readings a city or
cities from TWC's site, because the site is copyrighted. The fact it is
public and freely available from the NWS website doesn't matter - the
collection on TWC's site is copyrighted.


Interesting case. The US government's National Weather Service (NOAA)
at http://www.nws.noaa.gov/disclaimer.php does say that their data is
free (see the third bullet point).


Exactly. It is free from the NWS, because it is a government agency.
As a result, the data is, by definition, public domain.

However, I don't see where The Weather Channel's data is protected
after reading over section 3B of
http://www.weather.com/common/home/legal.html
In my read of the penultimate sentence, it is saying that you can't do
anything with anything from their site unless it is allowed by law. So
the question comes back, what is allowed by law as far as data
collection/dissemination goes?

Check with a copyright attorney. The collection itself, even though of
public data, can and is copyrighted.


This has been upheld many times in courts around the country.

Would you substantiate this claim?

Csaba

.

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