Copyright of Facts

[InfoNuovo at cs.com]

Alex,

Here are two references that may be useful to you:

Hoffman, Gary B.  Who Owns Genealogy: Cousins and Copyright.  published on
the web at
http://www.genealogy.com/genealogy/14_cpyrt.html.
Genealogy.com (Fremont, CA: 1997) Straightforward treatment of copyright
basics and an useful links to further sources. Valuable also for discussion
of what is not copyrightable subject matter and considerations that apply to
compilations.

Templeton, Brad.  A brief intro to copyright.  published on the web at
http://www.templetons.com/brad/copyright.html.
(www.templetons.com: undated)  Another overview with a software and Internet
perspective.  Useful links include Templeton's own article on copyright
myths.

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
compilation of the facts may be copyrightable (but the facts are still just
the facts), provided that the compilation satisfies the requirements for
copyrightable subject matter, but it is the compilation as a work of
authorship, not the facts, that are covered.  Is this an area of confusion
in this discussion?

There are fine points about the expression of the fact versus the fact
itself, but I still think the principle is pretty clear.  A complication, of
course, is that there is no sure-fire, trivial mechanical test for factness
versus authorship nor a hard, fixed line between creative expression of a
fact and a simple utilitarian expression of a fact (which copyright is not
permitted to constrain).  But that area of doubt has persisted since around
1790 in the U.S. and we have managed pretty well.

For me, the question would be whether there is anything in this area of
basic copyright application that requires special attention in open-source
licensing or is this just basic stuff of copyright generally?  Say more
about your concern.

-- Dennis

PS: I was told long ago that mapmakers once put intentional errors into
their maps specifically as a way to detect plagiarism.  In thinking about
this, I've concluded that I want to conduct myself in a way that honors the
intellectual creations of others and not worry so much about what some
anonymous few might do with my work.  Especially when the whole idea is to
share and build on each other's work to achieve results superior to what
we'd produce in isolation.  --dh.

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.  It is only the part that constitutes authorship that matters.
It isn't necessary to duplicate the measurements.  There are considerations
beyond copyright at play here, I think.  I certainly wouldn't go reproduce
someone's published trigonometry tables in a new compilation just to test
this idea. --dh.

------------------
Dennis E. Hamilton
InfoNuovo
mailto:infonuovo at email.com
tel. +1-206-779-9430 (gsm)
fax. +1-425-793-0283
http://www.infonuovo.com

-----Original Message-----
From: anicolao at iname.net [mailto:anicolao at iname.net]On Behalf Of Alex
Nicolaou
Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 1999 02:40
To: Bruce Perens
Cc: johnston at vectaport.com; license-discuss at opensource.org
Subject: Re: Can you alter the MIT license?

[ ... ]

Can you provide a reference that explains this? As I understand
copyright law, you most certainly can copyright your particular
collection of measurements that make up your map database.

It certainly is true that you cannot stop me from going and making the
same measurements and reporting my version.

However, you could probably stand up in court and say "He must have
violated my copyright because it is inconceivable that all of his
measurements should be exactly the same as all of mine, since
measurement is subject to error. Thus, he has copied my work in its
entirety, and has violated my copyright."

alex