On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 4:17 PM, Eugene Alvin Villar <sea...@gmail.com>wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 28, 2011 at 6:00 AM, Ed Avis <e...@waniasset.com> wrote: > > I see that you and Frederik disagreed here. (FWIW I think he is right - > a PNG > > file can clearly be seen as a database of pixel values. It is an image > too, > > and perhaps even a map or a photograph, but legally it would be hard to > argue > > that it *not* a database.) > > Taking this argument to its logical conclusion, every digital file is > a database of bytes and thus everything you create digitally from any > ODbL database is a derived database and not a produced work. > > This seems silly. > > The European definition of a database is "a collection of independent > works, data or other materials arranged in a systematic or methodical > way and individually accessible by electronic or other means". > > Individual pixels comprising a typical image (say a PNG map tile) are > not independent works. Each pixel cannot stand on its own and aren't > useful unless considered together with its neighboring pixels to form > an image. > > Pixels may not be independent works but I think they might be "data or other materials", in which case they are covered by that definition. The nearest thing we've got to a good definition of this is that if you use it like a database then it is a database. Whether the courts would agree with that definition remains to be tested, but much discussion here has not yet arrived at anything better.
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