[WikiEN-l] Copyright status of GPS coordinates

Thu May 11 23:29:59 UTC 2006

On 5/11/06, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> Lists of factual information *may* be ineligible for copyright *in the
> United States* in circumstances where they are *definitely not
> creative*.
>
> There is, to the best of my knowledge, no precedent as to whether or
> not this applies to material which was created and copyrighted in a
> different jurisdiction; it's tempting to say that the ruling
> essentially annuls noncreative foreign copyrights, but that would seem
> to conflict (at the very least) with the spirit of a whole host of
> copyright treaties. And the site in question is British, with less
> lenient positions on what is the minimum level of creativity...
>
> Just a note of caution.
>
There *is* a precedent.  "Bridgeman Art Library, Ltd. v. Corel Corp.
in the Southern District of New York. In that case, the court
initially misapplied British law to determine whether the subject
matter met the originality requirement for copyright protection. Upon
reconsideration, the court "corrected" itself by conceding that U.S.
law governed the originality issue."
http://www.gigalaw.com/articles/2001-all/yu-2001-04-all.html

Feist is a United States Supreme Court ruling based on the
Constitution of the United States.  The Constitution is not trumped by
any copyright treaty nor is it trumped by any foreign law, and the
fact that the material was created in a different jurisdiction is
irrelevant.  This is backed up by a whole host of US court rulings.

Anthony