--- Stirling Newberry <stirling.newberry(a)xigenics.net> wrote:
Translating from one medium to another is defined as
creativity. Just
as making a translation is copyrightable (though derrivative of the
original work). However, taking a PD aerial photograph and taking a
program to reduce it down to a line and releasing it under GFDL puts
the material in the intellectual commons. The change is that in 1980
you had to hire a person to do the work, and companies successfully
argued that if they could not make enough to pay that person, it would
not be done.
Translating is one thing, literally tracing is very different. Tracing does not
require any creativity at all. But as I said, the particulars in regard to GIS
data have not been tested yet (AFAIK). The Court may find there is a compelling
interest in giving that type of GIS data copyright protection. Thus we must
play it safe and create our own whenever PD data is not available.
-- mav
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