[Foundation-l] copyright question about data

Tue Apr 12 03:59:39 UTC 2005

On Mon, Apr 11, 2005 at 05:38:42PM -0700, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Andre Engels wrote:
> 
> >On Apr 11, 2005 11:42 PM, Edward Peschko <esp5 at pge.com> wrote:
> > 
> >
> >>What's the legal status of data retrieved from non-public domain sources?
> >>
> >>I understand that text that is retrieved from copyrighted materials is
> >>copyrighted, but how about data and figures that deal with common interest
> >>topics? Can you really copyright the amount of wheat grown in a year in
> >>bangladesh, or the number of accidents in a year on california roads?
> >>   
> >>
> >No, you cannot copyright the data itself. What is copyrighted is the
> >*representation* of the data, while the *selection* of the data MIGHT
> >be copyrighted.
> >
> This is a very important distinction.  The selection issue can be 
> difficult, and is most applicable when you are using the same subset of 
> data as someone else.  If you and the other person are providing 
> complete data that is not a breech since there is only one way to have 
> everything. :-)  Also an obvious form of representation of the material 
> (such as alphabetical order) is not copyrightable.

How about augmented data? Ie: say someone has a set of data that you'd like
to keep in its entirety, but you add some features that text cannot possibly
have (like, say links to supporting papers for important datapoints, 
or zoom-in on graphs). Is that considered copyright infringement?

Ed