Careful, gang. Before we start slinging things at each other, we need to get a little perspective about this topic.
There is no single, simple answer to what is or is not permitted, nor what is ethically "right". As I understand the rulings, you cannot copyright a fact. You can copyright the particular expression of a fact. To put this stupidly, you cannot copyright the fact that it is 52def F. in Portland Oregon right now. You can copyright the cute little "weather bug" that's part of my company's home page that is a link to Accuweather. What chafes us, I warrant, is the success some have had in locking up public data "that we've already paid for". Here's my 2c worth: * I have no trouble paying our local regional government $1800 a year for a subscription to a most wonderful set of GIS data layers. Yeah, I could probably get them one by one, but they provide a huge value by handling the correction, registration of layers and general mechanics of making this stuff work. I accept the fact that I can't give a copy of this data to anybody else. Anybody can get a single user subscription for $600 a year, much less if they are a bona fide non-profit. Seems fair to me. * One of our clients needed to so some serious marketing work. They paid several thousands of dollars for some fairly good name and address data. I think they got their money's worth. * If a government agency funds certain data collection or processing activities with my fees, not tax dollars, then that's OK. If tax dollars paid for the collection of data and they want to charge more than a nominal fee to accomplish "revenue enhancement", I do have a problem. I may not be able to define Justice, but I know it when I see it ! -----Original Message----- From: Eric Frost [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, April 29, 2002 10:33 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: MI-L Protecting GIS data (cross-posted), reply > you cannot copyright data (even if you have spent hundreds/thousands > of hours > collecting it). Oh no! That's going to come as a shock to the dozens of data vendors whose business models depend on that right :-) --------------------------------------------------------------------- List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- List hosting provided by Directions Magazine | www.directionsmag.com | To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
