On Tue, 2005-10-11 at 18:18 +0100, Philip Hunt wrote: > On Tuesday 11 October 2005 17:37, Alex Hudson wrote: > > I'm not sure that's even necessarily true. This data is probably subject > > to database copyright at least, > > I was under the impression that mere facts -- such as the carbohydrate values > of foods -- were not copyrightable. Am I wrong?
You're sadly wrong :( Collections of facts are copyrightable - database copyright. E.g., phonebooks, that kind of thing. > My understanding is that stuff produced by the Federal government is > automatically public domain. I know it's not subject to US copyright, but I don't know about whether or not that counts for other countries. There isn't a global 'public domain', copyright is a national issue (subject to the whims of Berne, obviously). I'm guessing since Berne 'only' requires you to recognise foreign copyrights, that it probably is essentially copyright free, but I don't know - database rights are kind of new and all. Cheers, Alex. _______________________________________________ Fsfe-uk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-uk
