Time zone database has new home after lawsuit
ajc.com
ajc.com
In the US, per the copyright act, data can't be copyrighted. Some compilations can be copyrighted, but the Supreme Court has said that the compilation can't just be a collection of data. It needs to posses even a small modicum of creativity in order to deserve protection. Your curated list of "awesome places to eat in NY" can be copyrighted. The yellow pages cannot.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_v._Rural for details.
My guess is that a world timezone database does not meet this minimum level of creativity.
The descriptions I've read about the lawsuit seem to indicate that the plaintiffs complain that some individual records were copied from their database, and that the database directly indicates that they did so. They would only have a case if they lifted major portions of the database and copied them enmasse, stealing their formatting, and the original was deemed to be more like your "curated ny restaurant list" than it was like the yellow pages.
Taking the information present in the records, and translating them to a different database format is likely not an infringement, per the copyright act. Even if it was though, the material in question likely isn't copyrightable anyways.
Feist stands for the proposition that any creative choice made in presenting information is sufficient for a valid copyright as to the creative choices made (thought the underlying factual information itself may not be copyrighted).
If this were to go to court, the copyright owner would win. How could the database be changed to get around the copyright at issue? Get rid of the region assignments, broaden (or narrow) the selection of cities/states/etc. included, or even simply flip the order in which geographic area and the corresponding timezone are listed.
That depends on when they became aware of it, if they've been aware of it for a long time but didn't sue then that will considerably weaken their case. They won't lose their copyright but they may lose their ability to get any damages.
In Feist even copying made-up entries designed to detect copying was deemed to not be an infringement.
The statement that "this area is assigned to this timezone" is not a creative decision. It's an assertion of a fact. Even if it's a false fact made up by the author, it's still an assertion of a fact.
That information is not subject to copyright.
Perhaps the particular expression of the information is.... but I'm not sure how the tz database infringes on that.
Am I missing something?
I think you are treading on thin ice with this reasoning. By the same token I might argue that "Harry said this to Ron and Ron said that to Harry" is an assertion of the fact that Harry and Ron had a conversation. What else is a novel except a collection of false facts made up by the author?
The "creative work" isn't the fact that country a is in time zone b. That's just data. A description of the process and the reasoning used to reach that conclusion, and an analysis of available facts is an expression. A map visualizing the data is an expression. A formatted chart is an expression. The connection between regions and timezones is just data. It's not protectable.
It is linked off the IANA homepage.
"A strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) is a lawsuit that is intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publi...
Or, looked at another way, even if the lawsuit succeeds and the tz database is judged a copyright violation, do you actually expect anyone to stop using it?
They'd have a very hard time arguing they weren't aware of it for so long that a very large portion of the IT world became dependent on it without becoming aware of it themselves. And all that is assuming that the claims hold water, which remains to be seen.
It's an attempt at extortion from where I'm sitting, after all, the value of the database is only determined by the parties that are using it, recreating it from scratch requires some effort but nothing monumental.
The current timezones are not at risk anyway, it is just the historical data we are talking about here.
Also: This is a copyright case, not trademark. 'Use it or lose it' does not apply to whether copyright violations have occurred; it can, at most, modify the damages involved.
As for the question of appropriation, I don't think that that should ever happen, it would basically mean that anything is up for grabs given the right reasoning.
Governments have to jump through some pretty involved hoops in order to seize your property (ok, in some countries the hoops are not that complicated and abuse is rife), for corporations to do the same thing would be a bad development.
Say next year we all decide that the windows source code is something we can't live without any more so hand it over?
That's not a good development, even in those cases where you could make a strong argument for it.
In this particular case, there isn't even a strong argument, all it will take is a little bit of work if they should win their case and then they can keep their database and use it to light the fire after printing it out. It will have lost its value entirely after it gets re-created from original material.
I think if it was that essential it would be recreated, or a work around found.
However the (US) military does in fact do something like that: They say we need to implement your patent. So they just start using it and pay the owner. The owner of the patent has no say in the matter and can not refuse.