[OSM-legal-talk] decision removing data

[Rob Myers]

On 08/07/2010 03:35 PM, Anthony wrote:
>
> I don't really see how there's an argument.  If photoshop offers a
> plugin that lets you draw a line with a certain thickness, a certain
> color, and a label on it, and you use that photoshop plugin to make a
> map, you've got a copyrighted work, and that copyright is owned by the
> person who drew the lines (remember how maps were one of the first
> works for which copyright was invented).

This confuses form and content. A map is not a database. Books were one 
of the first copyrightable works but this doesn't mean that cookery 
books copyright recipes. They don't, because recipes being mere facts 
trumps the fact that books can attract copyright.

> Another plugin lets you can make filled polygons of various colors.
> Why should it matter if you substitue "mapnik" for "photoshop
> plugin"?

Because you are confusing the rendered version of the contents of the 
database with the database itself. The copyrighted photograph of a meal 
is not the un-copyrightable recipe for the meal.

There are plenty examples of copyrighted works that directly represent 
an underlying thing that does not in itself have a copyright. Computer 
fonts, tapes of folk music or free jazz improvisation, mp3s of random 
generative music, films of un-scored dance, photographs of live art 
performances, etc. . There are also plenty of examples of how these vary 
between jurisdictions.

I am acutely aware that this conversation is pissing people off, so I am 
going to stop now before I am silently unsubscribed. ;-)

- Rob.