Copyright of Facts

[Angelo Schneider]

Hi Alex,

	its me again :-)

Please see below...

Regards,
	Angelo

Alex Nicolaou wrote:
> 
> InfoNuovo at cs.com wrote:
> 
> > Here are two references that may be useful to you:
> > http://www.genealogy.com/genealogy/14_cpyrt.html.
> 
> This was new to me, thanks.
> 
> > http://www.templetons.com/brad/copyright.html.
> 
> This I have already read, but I reread it.
> 
> > Something I find easy to forget in these discussions is the principle that
> > copyright of a work doesn't apply to the uncopyrightable material that
> > occurs in that work.   That is, an uncopyrightable fact can't be made
> > copyrightable by virtue of being conveyed in a copyrighted work.
> 
> The real area of confusion is whether a measured quantity should be
> considered a fact. The method and (in)accuracy of the measurement
> process could, potentially, be regarded a creative effort.
> 
> If I take a photograph, I am clearly permitted to copyright it - it is
> "art", and its composition reflects how I chose to record the facts (the
> real objects in the photograph). It is difficult or impossible for
> someone else to take the same photograph in the same conditions, so if
> someone else claims to have taken an identical picture it would be easy
> to win my case in court.

What do you want to win in court?

Your photo is yours! So every reprint or whtsoever is copyrightred by
you.

But HIS PHOTO IS HIS! 
There is no case in court!!!!!
There is nothing to win!!!!!!!

How would you like to prevent someone to not take a photo?

Thats impossible.

His photo is his work, he holds the copyright.
Your photo is your work, you hold the copyright.

Copyright is regardless of "art" or not.
The author has the copyright - nobody else - that matters.

[...]

> This makes my point exactly. Errors in the map data, whether intentional
> or not, allow one to distinguish between a derived work of my collection
> of measurements versus a re-measuring of the data that are in my
> collection. If measurements are facts, then it doesn't matter: copyright
> law doesn't permit facts to be copyrighted. If I take your map and print

Whooow.
You bring that to a point what makes this threads so hard to
follow.

YES: you cant't copyright facts.

What does this mean?

"Ceasar died 45 A.D. at 15th of march." This is a fact.
I wrote it here. I do not know who ever did write that ever before.

But this eMail holds some facts:
The facts: johnston wrote something, and Alex wrote something and Ceasar
died.

But with your stuff quoted this email is my work!
I have the copyright!
This is regardless of any facts here!

You have no right to reproduce it without giving my name (and all others
involved)
on your reproduction.

So if you find that thread interesting enough to write a book about it,
you have to ask each contributor for alowance to "copy" his work.

However in the nature of this "media" you are allowed to "copy"/quote/
reproduce-in-abstracts of this as long as the athorship of each one
involved is resolveable.

> a trivial transformation of it, such as a mirror image, the error would
> show up and allow you to prove that it wasn't my original work.
> Similarly, if I recompile the map data into a new database format, the
> fact that I have reproduced all the errors of the original data suggest
> that I have violated the map data copyright. All this assumes, of

You have not violated the "maps data copyright" but the "maps
copyright"!

> course, that measurements are not facts and that they can be copyrighted
> - but the correcteness of that assumption is unclear.
> 
> > PPS: I would quibble with your example.  As far as I know, under copyright
> > there is no quantitative limitation on the use of facts from works of
> > authorship.
> 
> Your quibble is perfectly valid if measurements == facts.
> 
> alex

Best Regards,
	Angelo

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Angelo Schneider           OOAD/UML           Angelo.Schneider at xcc.de
Putlitzstr. 24         Patterns/FrameWorks       Fon: +49 721 9812465
76137 Karlsruhe             C++/JAVA             Fax: +49 721 9812467