Hello, first, to put things clear, I know of Transiki, I know of Google Transit obviously, I know of OSMand, and I know - a little - about database copyright in France. I already asked several lawyers about my questions, without it resulting in any clear answer. And no, what I intend to do will not be linked to OSM, I will create a separate dite on which OSM would only feature as the provider of purely geographical data. And also, this site I may make myself will not prevent me, on another end, to contribute to the more proper Transiki. But still, I have this "dirty" idea, that I would like to try. My question is not about trying to naively copy everything, it is more about trying to find a way so that I more recreate than copy things. My question is this: Starting which point, the whole set of timetables of a single, standalone transit agency, would constitute a protectable database according to French Law, in the way that it needed "substantial efforts, either materialy, financially or in terms of personel, to be created"? By "created", I also intend that the only work directly tight to the creation of a database, is the gathering of information, not its creation (i will come back to that point later on).
On another end, I know transit agencies are hardly on their own in the real world, but the thinking behind this is that, if, and only if, I can copy or reproduce, in any way, including taking pictures of bus stops, the whole set of timetables a *small* transit agency, then wether these timetables were gathered *afterwards*(after their creation by the small transit agency, and put onto their small site) into a bigger database, by either the big company owning the small one, or by the public authority compiling timetables of all the transit agencies of whom it has the charge, is none of my concern: in this case, we would only be gathering data *from the same source*. Of course, if it happens that the transit agencies only propose unfinished timetables either to the public authority or to their parent company, and that it is the authority/parent company that finishes all timetables of many small agencies, then these timetables would directly be part of their personal database, and then, taking these timetables, by any mean, would probably be copying their database. The point behind that is that there may be a way, along which it would not be easy for transport agencies to ever prove that a site indeed made unauthorized copy of a *protected *database. If a set of 10 timetables is possible to copy, then when you copy timetables from a single transit agency site, you would only copy THEIR small database, and if the investment they made into gathering timetable information - I insist on the term *gathering, *not *creating* - then the copy of all their timetables would not be forbidden; and if one would copy like that all timetables from all the small transit agencies he can, and if by doing this he recreates the timetable database of some big transport authority or parent company, then who cares, as he only recreated the database from the same source as did this big entity. This could maybe be a way to do a quick-and-dirty transit map, and see if anyone manages to prove that there was something illegal in it. I know this kind of project may sound quite risky, which is why I will do everything possible to cut all responsibility off Openstreetmap, which I think is not difficult as Openstreetmap staff would have nothing to do with my future standalone site, and also, I am not going into that without preparing the terrain, which is why I am right now consulting so many lawyers to get a better picture of what is ahead me, and readying my strategy, to avoid trouble. Any advice on such an entreprise? Thanks Andrei
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