[OSM-newbies] Where is the line between "facts" and "creative works"?

[Iván Sánchez Ortega]

El Viernes, 26 de Septiembre de 2008, Maciej Piechotka escribió:
> I'm not sure how in Your country but I just discovered that I can
> download the episode of series produced by public TV, which according to
> Your theory belongs also to me, but not only I have to pay but it is
> 14-day-valid DRM-protected file.

No, no, no. Here in Spain, government-funded TV is broadcasted by RTVE, which 
is *not* a branch of the goverment, but a state-owned public corporation. It 
has all IP rights over the broadcasts.

However, the spanish Ministry of Public Works can NOT hide ministry order 
(e.g.) FOM/956/2008 from view, can NOT prevent me from reading it, can NOT 
prevent me from copying it or quoting it or whatever. It can NOT assert any 
copyrights over it.


We have a difference between works of an agency (or state-owned corp.), and 
published laws and rulings of any ministry. The first are subject to 
copyright, the latter are not.


Now comes the funny part: the Spanish National Geographic Institute (IGN) is a 
government agency and has copyright on any maps it produces. But plans of the 
Ministry of Public Works published as part of a ministry order don't (can't) 
have copyright. Even if the ministry order includes maps made by the IGN. It 
gets messy from there, and as of now we're trying to sort things out in the 
talk-es mailing list.


IIRC, this dates back to babylonian and roman law - in ancient times, laws 
were hidden from public view, and a whole bunch of priests were killed as a 
result, followed by everybody being able to review the laws. A student of any 
law college would be able to ellaborate on this.

BTW, this is why hiding US' TSA rules for airport checks is a jeopardy of the 
legal system. It's downright bad and dangerous to hide that from public view, 
either by IP rights or by secrecy.



Cheers,
-- 
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Iván Sánchez Ortega <ivan at sanchezortega.es>

Now listening to: Tosca - Suzuki in Dub (2000) - [6] Annanas (Uko dub) (6:57) 
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