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Company tries to scam iphone developer, claiming they own public data

sfappeal.com

25 pointsjmathes7 comments

Does A Private Company Own Your Muni Arrival Times?

"Muni spokesperson Judson True says otherwise. In fact, he says that, no, Muni owns the data in question and that the public is, of course, entitled to access it."

I paste this here, because it's at the very bottom of the article and it doesn't seem obvious to me that the arrival time of buses is public data that can be used for free. Well, that's what most of us wish but if Nextbus had made a deal with Muni to put their transponders on the buses in exchange of owning the data and giving it to Muni for free, it would be hard to argue otherwise. I wouldn't be surprised if Muni actually got a special deal because I think I remember looking at this exact thing for the buses where I live and that it had to be licensed.

It's somewhat similar to satellite or map imaging, in that companies have invested money to gather the data. It is public data in one sense but that doesn't necessarily mean it can be used freely. I'm glad Muni spoke out and made it clear though.

Another example (of a similar kind of possible deal) would be JCDecaux which offered (I believe) bus-stops benches to cities in exchange of managing the advertising on them.

The founder of Routesy should sue NextBus for harassment and Apple for complicity, and see how fast this case gets settled. He'll get his app reinstated and probably get some compensation for lost revenue from NextBus to avoid trial... if in fact the MUNI position is correct.

NextBus isn't the company harassing the Routesy guy, "NextBus Informaion Systems" (NBIS) is. Reading between the lines, it appears that NBIS is run by a crafty fellow who got NextBus to grant NBIS exclusive rights to collect license fees for their data, without NextBus knowing the full scope of what they were getting into. (hence their "we cannot comment" stance)

The link is heavily editorialized. The actual title of the article is: "Does A Private Company Own Your Muni Arrival Times?"

I bet at least some people outside SF have no idea what "muni" means.

Even if NextBus "owned" the data, it's unlikely any claims they made on it would be enforceable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications_v._Rural_Tel...

I am not a lawyer, and neither is wikipedia.

That case is inapplicable; it deals with static factual data collections.

Bus times are dynamic, estimated facts. The act of estimating, via the use of proprietary means, is what gives NBIS the right to "own" bus (estimated) arrival times b/c estimations are just interpretations.

Obviously, NBIS has no ownership to historical bus arrival times, b/c those are actual, irrefutable facts.

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