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Posted by Jerry Stuckle on 07/27/06 04:36
Csaba Gabor wrote:
> You seem to be getting confused about what I want. I don't want the
> kind of "good information" that you are talking about. What I do want
> is to be able to form an informed opinion. That's what people all over
> the world do. They don't pay a copyright lawyer hundreds of dollars
> for an opionion on whether they may make a photocopy or not. What they
> do is to discuss it with others, read about it, and form an opinion on
> their own, whether or not it complies with actual law. It's not just
> about copyright law, it's about all issues.
>
They do if they want accurate information. Anything else can get you in
serious legal trouble.
> Furthermore, here's a not oft mentioned statistic: in 50% of court
> cases with a decision, one side is not doing as well as they expected
> (as in, they lose). That is to say, the information from those lawyers
> was not "good information" since it did not sustain their case. Legal
> advice may or may not be correct. You say that it is the job of your
> lawyers to protect your assets. You might want to review your contract
> and ask them to do some more educating of you because that's not their
> job. If your assets become lost in a court case, you figure your
> lawyers are on the hook? Not hardly. The job of your lawyers is to
> advise you as to how they think YOU could best protect your assets, and
> to help effect whatever you decide. That's very different from them
> protecting your assets.
>
I doubt that. I suspect much more than 50% don't get their way. Civil
cases are not generally "all or nothing".
And no, my attorneys are not on the hook if I lose a court case. But
they ARE on the hook if they give me bad legal advice. They have a
legal obligation to give me good advice. It doesn't mean I'll win every
case. But it does mean they give me good, informed legal advice -
something you won't find on the Internet.
> Lawyers have an important purpose. They (are supposed to) have a large
> knowledge of case history, and they know how to navigate the system,
> which forms to fill out and how, can usually advise on different
> options. They do not take the place of one's brain - the individual
> should be as well educated as possible on a topic to gain the greatest
> advantage from their lawyer.
>
If that's all you think lawyers do, I'm sorry for you. It is their job
to THINK - in legal terms. Not only provide information on previous
cases, but help interpret the law and precedents as they apply to YOUR
circumstances. This is their LEGAL OBLIGATION.
> Maybe, instead of me going to a lawyer (a ridiculous notion in a
> discussion), you should argue more cogently, and back up your "No it
> isn't" with convincing citations. Otherwise, you look pretty silly.
> And maybe you are getting "good information", but it's sure not
> filtering through to this thread. Consider this - suppose I actually
> did go to a lawyer and reported back, "Hey I did ask a copyright
> lawyer, and he supported my contention." Will you all of a sudden say,
> "Oh, OK, you must be right." Hardly. Proof by authority went out the
> door in high school.
>
Not at all ridiculous. Trying to get legal information from the
Internet is ridiculous, however.
I really don't care if you think I "look silly" or not. It's not my job
to educate you on legal issues. And quite frankly, I really don't give
a damn if you get your arse in a trouble because you took cues from what
you found on the Internet. You deserve it.
> You tell me I'm not getting it right. But you don't back this up with
> a shred of convincing argument. "He said, she said" when there is no
> evidence of a deep understanding isn't worth diddly. For example, you
> said I misinterpreted the library info. I provided a relevant link.
> You said it doesn't apply and ask me instead to believe something that
> an alleged expert told you some time ago. Argument by ignoring what
> the other person says also went out the door a long time ago.
>
I did. I told you to get good advice - from a copyright attorney. You
just refuse to follow it. But then fools don't take good advice.
> A year ago I got a letter from a bank's law firm, a specialist in IP
> (intellectual property). They wanted to take away from me a domain
> name I had registered in good faith. They told me that I was in
> serious violation of a couple of laws. Now if you reasearch this area,
> you'll find that the law strongly favours the plaintiff in these types
> of cases. I did my research - internet reasearch, no less - and wrote
> back. This time I got back a letter from a senior partner in the firm
> affirming that I was in violation of the law (not even suggesting that
> I might be, but saying outright that I was). I sent back another
> letter and haven't heard from them since. Nor have I changed what I'm
> doing with my domain. Now, do you figure that the bank got their
> money's worth from that law firm specializing in IP? I'm guessing they
> actually paid for that "good information" and got a "sorry" for it.
> But because my situation had some novel elements in it, I subsequently
> went to the EFF and got pointed to a law firm which did back me up on
> it. In doing so, I found that the research I had done was pretty well
> spot on. Oh yea, and the lawyer I presented my case to gave me plenty
> of "good information."
>
Not knowing the details, I couldn't say. Nor do I care. If I got one
of these from a bank, I would turn it over to my copyright attorney's
firm (although my copyright attorney doesn't handle trademark law,
others in his firm do).
> The point is to say that the internet is actually a very useful source
> of research. While I don't advocate that it be used in place of a
> lawyer, it is certainly reasonable to do reasearch via the internet
> (should I even need to point this out in 2006?) in forming opinions and
> in preparing to present one's case to a lawyer.
>
But you are advocating its use in the place of an attorney.
> I'm just thinking that maybe when people are attempting to learn PHP,
> we should just tell them, "Go to a PHP professional." Clearly, that
> person will do better than a dabbler who is asking for help. Yea,
> people really shouldn't practise programming if they haven't been
> properly trained. They will do all sorts of horrible things and ignore
> industry standards and maybe even use eval.
>
Learning PHP is much different than interpreting the law. If you can't
see the difference, you're an even bigger fool than I previously thought.
> The one thing we seem to agree on is that the OP does have some dicey
> IP concerns and it would behoove him to gain some clarity on those
> issues.
>
> Csaba
>
And learn not to top post. This newsgroup uses bottom posting or merged
posting (like I did here) as it's standard.
> Oh, and "My dad is bigger than your dad" arguments are passe, too.
>
> Jerry Stuckle wrote:
>
>>Csaba Gabor wrote:
>>
>>>Jerry Stuckle wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Csaba Gabor wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Jerry Stuckle wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>Kenneth Downs wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Jerry Stuckle wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>Additionally, do you have permission from EBay to use their information
>>>>>>>>in this way? All of it is copyrighted, and using it without their
>>>>>>>>permission can get you and the developer in a lot of trouble. Of
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Hmmm, I would wonder about the distinction between their HTML pages and the
>>>>>>>data points.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Copying an entire page and displaying it as part of your business would
>>>>>>>definitely be a violation. Oh, except for google does that, um, they do it
>>>>>>>actually with the entire internet. There have been a few high-profile
>>>>>>>cases of people objecting, but by-and-large it seems to go forward.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Ras is talking about gathering data points that they have made public. I
>>>>>>>would bet (of course IANAL) that he is ok until he starts thinking about
>>>>>>>going public. Then he will have to acknowledge the source of the data and
>>>>>>>obtain some kind of understanding.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>But EBay is also a data collection - and that collection is copyrighted,
>>>>>>also. You can't make use of the collection without their approval, even
>>>>>>if you do just excerpt data and use the data in another way.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Copyright applies only to presentation (of data, et. al.) and not to
>>>>>data itself. There was a case way back when where Ma Bell sued some
>>>>>upstart for trying to make their own yellow pages and the argument was
>>>>>that the information was copyrighted. I seem to recollect that the
>>>>>decision went against Ma Bell (AT&T) because they could only claim
>>>>>copyright on their particular presentation. If the data was presented
>>>>>another way (for example, reordered by first name) then there was no
>>>>>protection.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>That's where you're wrong. The data itself can also be copyrighted, as
>>>>when it is part of a collection. I suggest you check your sources
>>>>again. There have been many claims won because the data itself was used
>>>>without permission.
>>>
>>>
>>>Evidently, I was right (except that it was white pages). It was a 1991
>>>Supreme Court decision (Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone
>>>Service) that is alluded to here:
>>>http://www.eff.org/IP/WIPO/?f=cpt_wipo_treaty-primer.txt
>>>That page is basically documenting a reaction to the decision wherein
>>>WIPO is trying to get the US to sign exactly the kind of treaty
>>>extending to database protections that you suggest is in place.
>>>
>>>Could you cite a link or two about claims being won because data itself
>>>was being used without permission, where there was no user agreement
>>>not to use the data? That would be very informative.
>>>
>>
>>As I've said before. If you want good information, get it from a
>>copyright attorney. That's where I get mine. Not internet links.
>>
>>And don't try to interpret what you read on the internet yourself. You
>>are not getting it right.
>>
>>>>>At the same time, I seem to remember that the case above has been
>>>>>superceded or its precedent has been mollified by subsequent cases, but
>>>>>I don't remember how.
>>>
>>>>I'd suggest you get a copyright attorney to give you the real facts,
>>>>instead of maybe remembering something which may or may not be correct.
>>>
>>>When/if I encounter a situation where I need one.
>>>In this thread, we're discussing our own understandings as non lawyers.
>>>And citing information to the extent possible, right?
>>>
>>>To that end, here is a 'recent' summary (upshot: copyright law does not
>>>protect data in databases) by the EFF about the state of affairs in
>>>2004:
>>>http://www.eff.org/IP/WIPO/20040607_database_protection.pdf
>>>which link I found at:
>>>http://www.eff.org/IP/WIPO/?f=archive.html
>>>Actually, two years is a long time on this front. More recent info
>>>would be welcome.
>>>
>>
>>Again - get a copyright attorney's advice. What you get on the internet
>>does not qualify as legal advice and may or may not be correct.
>>Additionally, you may misinterpret what it said (like you did the
>>library info).
>>
>>>>>Another case of data vs. presentation is the data points of the
>>>>>boundaries between countries, states, counties, etc. A map is
>>>>>copyrighted because it is a presentation of the underlying data points.
>>>>>However, are those data points public domain? If you look at the
>>>>>agreement that you have to sign with the various map companies on the
>>>>>internet, they all say that you agree not to republish the underlying
>>>>>data points in any form. Thus, it is not a question of copyright, it
>>>>>truly is a question of user agreement.
>>>>
>>>>Yes, the data points are public domain. And yes, it is a matter of
>>>>copyright. If not, they would have no grounds to stand on to require
>>>>such an agreement. Someone could easily sue to them to provide the
>>>>information.
>>>
>>>This is actually a fascinating area, but its own separate thread.
>>
>>No, it's not. I will not continue it here. It has nothing to do with
>>PHP. And if you want legal advice, see an attorney.
>>
>>
>>>>>I'd be at least somewhat worried in the original poster's place. I
>>>>>don't see an issue of his copying pages (by the way, when I say
>>>>>copying, I am thinking that what the OP is doing is extracting the
>>>>>relevant data from the given pages and saving only that - why waste
>>>>>extra bytes? - and plus you need extracted data to be able to work with
>>>>>it) - to this point, it's all research. When he starts thinking about
>>>>>publishing the data (I presume he's not republishing the pages. If he
>>>>>does, he does have copyright issues) in a for sale book, then I think
>>>>>it's important to do very careful legal research.
>>>>
>>>>And even for personal use it is liable to be a copyright violation. I
>>>>would NOT want eBay's attorneys gaffer me.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>The Weather Channel is another data collection. The current temperature
>>>>>>is public data - available for free from the National Weather Service.
>>>>>>You cannot, for instance, collect hourly temperature readings a city or
>>>>>>cities from TWC's site, because the site is copyrighted. The fact it is
>>>>>>public and freely available from the NWS website doesn't matter - the
>>>>>>collection on TWC's site is copyrighted.
>>>>>
>>>>>Interesting case. The US government's National Weather Service (NOAA)
>>>>>at http://www.nws.noaa.gov/disclaimer.php does say that their data is
>>>>>free (see the third bullet point).
>>>>
>>>>Exactly. It is free from the NWS, because it is a government agency.
>>>>As a result, the data is, by definition, public domain.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>However, I don't see where The Weather Channel's data is protected
>>>>>after reading over section 3B of
>>>>>http://www.weather.com/common/home/legal.html
>>>>>In my read of the penultimate sentence, it is saying that you can't do
>>>>>anything with anything from their site unless it is allowed by law. So
>>>>>the question comes back, what is allowed by law as far as data
>>>>>collection/dissemination goes?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Check with a copyright attorney. The collection itself, even though of
>>>>public data, can and is copyrighted.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>This has been upheld many times in courts around the country.
>>>
>>>
>>>Would you substantiate this claim?
>>>
>>>Csaba
>>>
>>
>>My information comes from one of the larger copyright attorney firms (I
>>am in the Washington, DC area, after all) in the country. I trust their
>>information much more than anything you say or I see quoted on the
>>internet. After all - they're job is to protect my assets. And I pay
>>them well for it.
>>
>>I will not continue this conversation. My comment was to give fair
>>warning to the original poster that what he is doing could get him in a
>>lot of trouble. It was not to argue law with you or anyone else.
>>
>>You want legal advice? Don't get it from the internet. See your
>>attorney. I will not quote internet sites for legal advice. And I will
>>not continue this discussion.
>
>
--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstucklex@attglobal.net
==================
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