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

Thu Oct 9 14:07:21 UTC 2014

Hello Peter,

I think it depends on local law. Here in Europe imho the timetables are not
copyrightable. Everybody may use the same tables. But, in some cases,
German/French law e.g. you have to get the rights to operate. You need a
licence to operate. Operating licence is given by local authorities.

And, for timetables, there is no need to copyright them. You will not have
any constraints with a publisher to use your offer! You will be happy not
to pay for this advertisement.

Other perspective for the layout of a published timetable. I am shure the
layout  (fonts, graphixs, etc..) is copyrightable.

Kind regards,
Matthias

2014-10-09 14:49 GMT+02:00 Pieter Colpaert <pieter.colpaert at okfn.org>:

> 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/
>  ) dissapears.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Pieter
>
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