David Megginson said: > Lee Elliott wrote: > > > I'm pretty sure that information/data can't be copyrighted - but the design of > > the presentation of the information/data can. > > I hope not, but every country has its own (bizarre) laws about this kind of > thing -- for example, in Commonwealth countries, including Canada and > Australia, the Book of Common Prayer has a perpetual copyright in the name > of the Queen. Jeppesen does draw its own approach plates, updated based on > the information in the Australian AIP (I'd assume), so it really looks like > a data grab from the little I've seen so far. > > Before I bash Oz any more, I'll repeat the problem that Garmin had with my > own government recently. The Garmin 296 handheld GPS includes terrain > obstructions (such as towers), which could save of lives; however, the > Canadian government refused to provide obstruction information for Canada > unless they got a royalty for each unit sold -- as a result, Canadian pilots > do not see towers displayed on their Garmin 296 units, and at least a few > will likely crash in the next few years as a result, costing the Canadian > government millions in search and rescue, medical bills, lost taxes, etc. etc. >
But people don't mind paying all sorts of taxes for emergency services. It is those behind the scene revenue streams (e.g. "royalties"), which can be used to fund politically unpopular line items, that government officials find hard to come by. Best, Jim (the pesimistic american) _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
