[Open-transport] Public Transport schedules in Europe: legal question

Thu Oct 9 13:36:33 UTC 2014

Hi there,

I think that wether transport data is copyrightable or not is not the point most of the time. I mean, it’s an interesting question from the legal perspective, but in the end, you’re always likely to get in trouble if you’re doing something on the agencies/governments/companies back.

Following what Stéphane said, that guy already lost (time, money and possibly hair) just by being sued, even if he eventually wins. In the end, he may be able to prove that postal code data is not copyrightable, but we, as a community, haven’t exactly won, have we?

tl;dr we should be working with data providers, not with their data. We shouldn’t need their licensing or agreements, but their will and commitment.

_ miguel

> On 09 Oct 2014, at 14:16, Stéphane Guidoin <stephane at opennorth.ca> wrote:
> 
> Interesting question. My answer will be a bit off because in concerns Canada and a different topic, but it could inform your thinking:
> 
> Here in Canada, a guy crowdsourced/retro-engineered the postal code geospatial lookup. Post Canada, a Crown Corporation, is the one building the postal code database with the corresponding addresses (and thus, geospatial limits). The situation is pretty similar to schedule (in my mind at least) So Post Canada is suing the guy over copyright infringement. 
> 
> And the defendant argues that postal code are not copyrightable because it's a common fact. The case is not settled yet, so there is no legal answer available yet, but some of the legal specialist who have commented the case said that Post Canada will have difficulties to win its point. (However, there are some slight difference between copyright in Canada and E.U)
> 
> Steph
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 8:49 AM, Pieter Colpaert <pieter.colpaert at okfn.org <mailto:pieter.colpaert at okfn.org>> wrote:
> Dear all,
> 
> A legal question: are public transit schedules copyrightable?
> 
> So there are two parts as this is a "database":
> 
> 1. Copyright
> 
> Has there been a "creative" aspect to these schedules?
>  → One could say yes from the urban planning perspective: the team that created the optimal schedule for that situation has created a time schedule that can be copyrighted
>  → One could say no from the customer informing perspective: the data are a logical consequence of vehicles arriving and leaving.
> 
> 2. Sui generis
> 
> When compiling a database with the time schedules, there is an investment made. Yet, that investment is needed in any case as they need it to operate their public transport network. So there is no sui generis law applicable?
> 
> When in doubt, it seems good to choose the best option for our case, which is saying: public transit schedules cannot be protected. This is also the case for for instance the white pages or the results of a lottery.
> 
> If agreed, we should make a strong statement with Open Knowledge Open Transport, and for instance, make sure the question "are transport timetables openly licensed?" in the census (http://global.census.okfn.org/ <http://global.census.okfn.org/>) dissapears.
> 
> What do you think?
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Pieter
> 
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