[OSM-legal-talk] Database and its contents

[80n]

On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 6:07 PM, Francis Davey <fjmd1a at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 23 November 2010 17:08, Ed Avis <eda at waniasset.com> wrote:
> >
> > Thanks.  My followup question - which is not quite so much a question of
> pure
> > fact, and addressed not to you but to the list in general - is that if
> database
> > copyright applies wherever database right does, why not use copyright
> alone?
>
> Because it is much harder for a database to attract copyright
> protection than sui generis protection - especially for "data
> collectors" like OSMF.
>
> Database copyright arises when the database is the author's "own
> intellectual creation". That means that some design or creativity has
> to have gone into the database - it can't simply be an assemblage of
> facts.
>
> Example: the football fixtures list for the English premier league
> require lots of thought (so the league convinced a judge) to design,
> so the collection of items of information of the form Arsenal v
> Chelsea, Tuesday 10pm at Emirates, has database copyright (and because
> the league produce it for their own purposes they don't get sui
> generis protection).
>
> Database right arises when there is a "substantial investment". It
> focuses on work not creativity. Lots of work in making a database
> won't get you copyright but may get you database right.
>
> It is much more likely that OSMF attracts database right than database
> copyright.
>

To be precise a database right is earned when there is a "substantial
investment in obtaining, verifying or presenting" the contents of the
database.  Has the OSMF done enough to earn that right?  Most obtaining has
been done by contributors who are not members of OSMF and have no connection
with OSMF. As far as I know OSMF has no verification function and certainly
doesn't make a substantial investment in verification.  As for presenting
they host a server running Mapnik and provide a planet dump and some APIs.
Their only investment is the cost of the hardware[1].

In much of the database rights literature there is often a reference to the
$ value spent to create the database in question.  Presumably this is
relevant to whether the right has been earned based on a substantial
investment.  How does OSMF measure up on this, having spent just a few
thousand dollars on hardware?

80n

[1] http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Finances



>
> >
> > If I've misunderstood what 'database copyright' means, and it's not as
> strong
> > as ordinary copyright, please correct me.
>
> It may depend on what you mean by "not as strong as". They are just
> different things. Its best not to think of them in the same way.
> Although quite a few provisions are imported from copyright, there's a
> lot that is different. For example you infringe copyright by doing one
> of a list of things (copying etc) whereas you infringe database right
> by extraction or reutlisation (of a substantial part...).
>
> --
> Francis Davey
>
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