[License-discuss] Looking for a license agreement.

[John Cowan]

David Woolley scripsit:

> Database copyrights are not like patents.  As long as you obtain the
> fact independently, you can publish them.  Telephone directories and
> maps have bogus entries to help detect whether a competing compilation
> is truly independent.

Maps, I hasten to say, are copyrightable in the U.S., although facts in
the maps (like "London is in England") and about the maps ("Anytown USA"
is in grid square N1 on such-and-such a map") are not.  The map itself,
however, requires the selection of which facts to present and the choice
of a manner of presentation, and as such is more than creative enough to
be an object of copyright.

-- 
La mayyitan ma qadirun yatabaqqa sarmadi                            John Cowan
Fa idha yaji' al-shudhdhadh fa-l-maut qad yantahi.              cowan at ccil.org
                --Abdullah al-Hazred, Al-`Azif      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan