I guess one obvious question is do you have permission from the Dublin Bus company to use their data yourself? From their T&Cs (http://www.dublinbus.ie/en/Legal/) ‘No part of this website may be copied, performed in public, broadcast or adapted without the prior written consent of Córas Iompair Éireann. All rights on this material are reserved.‘ Your own ‘scraping’ of the data is itself legally questionable.
I was in contact with Dublin Bus during the development of the app. Sent them screenshots, etc. Anyone who responded thought it was a good idea, but passed me on to talk to someone else in the bureaucracy (it's a public company funded by the taxpayer).
In the end, the leads fizzled out and I didn't get written permission to use the data from Dublin Bus. I continued to keep them up to date on it, hoping that they'd even call me up on it so that we could figure something out. My objective was to get at the data cleanly without having to scrape, and also to form a relationship that might allow me to use the upcoming real-time data.
As I mentioned in the post, there was no app available for this before mine. Dublin Bus website is a mess (they've updated it in the last few months, but it's still awful) and it's particularly awkward to use on a small screen.
They're a government owned company and others have pointed out that 'data' can't have a copyright, but I'm not really sure to be honest. I suspect they're aware of it and are choosing not to act since it's benefiting their service.
I would argue that this is a different issue to what this other developer has done: He has taken my schema and my translation of the data which is my own original work.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, but I agree you have done work that should be protectable. I commend you for approaching them, but you shouldn’t have given up. Without written agreement from bus company that you have permission it’s going to be very hard to go after him. Get that and you are golden.
Data doesn't have copyright, but in europe a database such as this is protected by the 96/9/EC Database Directive (most members states implemented this around 1999/2000).
This includes non-electronic databases, so even if you scanned all this data from timetables published on paper, they'd still be protected by database rights -- and you don't have the right to use substantial parts of it without a license. (nor does your competitor).
(Assuming a government organization has database rights in the same way a person or corporation can have them).
There was this whole thing with that here in NY with the MTA. They were claiming that their time tables are copyrighted, but after it went in/out of courts it was determined that only the complied versions are and then they opened up their data files for developers. The time a train arrives and departs does not fall under copyright. I'm not sure how things are in the UK but I'd expect them to be fairly similar.
Semi-related: about a week after I had moved to Dublin from the US I made an offhand remark in a shop about being in the UK and was very quickly corrected. I quickly learned my lesson and have moved on to other cultural mistakes. :-)
Similar or not, a lot of very highly-paid lawyers would love to argue over this for weeks.
My general argument is this whole situation is not as clear-cut and black-and-white as the developer in question asserts, however ‘moral’ or justified his objection to second developer’s seemingly less defensible actions in copying his work.
There seems little ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ here, just very subtle shades of grey and legal interpretation of who owns which rights to various elements of data, code, design and structure.
You are only technically correct. Eire is the Irish name for Ireland, but is not commonly used in English. In Ireland, everyone calls Ireland Ireland. Similarly, the language is Irish, not Gaelic. You only hear the words "Eire" and "Gaelic" used outside Ireland, typically in America (except for the small section of the population who actually speak Irish).
If you were to use the Irish term Eire, then it would make sense to use the Irish name for Dublin, which is Baile Atha Cliath, or Dubh Linn, depending.
Mor elike the oppsoite. Ireland is the whole island and Eire is the Republic of Ireland. It also depends on one's politics. Londonderry or Derry ? My t-shirt says "People's Republic of Derry", though round here it gets mis-read as "People's Republic of Derby" which is a neighbouring city!
IANAL, but it is my understanding that you own the copyright on the modifications you make when creating a derivative work, regardless of whether or not the derivative work is itself a copyright violation.
But if the original work was a collection of facts that is not protected by copyright, then your derivative work might not be protected by copyright either. Lists of facts are not protected by copyright in the US.
This is true but mostly an abuse of copyright protections in my opinion.
Look at how Westlaw gained private control over the dissemination of public legal decisions through standardizing and copyrighting their presentation of those decisions.
I happy see people lose at putting up copyright gates of this sort, whatever legal right they might have.
And without those IP permissions in place, in the form of written approval by the bus company to use their data, he risks opening one almighty can of worms…
Comments
I guess one obvious question is do you have permission from the Dublin Bus company to use their data yourself? From their T&Cs (http://www.dublinbus.ie/en/Legal/) ‘No part of this website may be copied, performed in public, broadcast or adapted without the prior written consent of Córas Iompair Éireann. All rights on this material are reserved.‘ Your own ‘scraping’ of the data is itself legally questionable.
I was in contact with Dublin Bus during the development of the app. Sent them screenshots, etc. Anyone who responded thought it was a good idea, but passed me on to talk to someone else in the bureaucracy (it's a public company funded by the taxpayer).
In the end, the leads fizzled out and I didn't get written permission to use the data from Dublin Bus. I continued to keep them up to date on it, hoping that they'd even call me up on it so that we could figure something out. My objective was to get at the data cleanly without having to scrape, and also to form a relationship that might allow me to use the upcoming real-time data.
As I mentioned in the post, there was no app available for this before mine. Dublin Bus website is a mess (they've updated it in the last few months, but it's still awful) and it's particularly awkward to use on a small screen.
They're a government owned company and others have pointed out that 'data' can't have a copyright, but I'm not really sure to be honest. I suspect they're aware of it and are choosing not to act since it's benefiting their service.
I would argue that this is a different issue to what this other developer has done: He has taken my schema and my translation of the data which is my own original work.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, but I agree you have done work that should be protectable. I commend you for approaching them, but you shouldn’t have given up. Without written agreement from bus company that you have permission it’s going to be very hard to go after him. Get that and you are golden.
They have original creator rights and recourse for the way you extracted data without those permissions in place. http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1997/73032--c.htm#15
While you could argue he has ripped you off, without that written permission to use the data you can’t effectively argue your case.
I’d say your sin was less deliberate and more from a position of ignorance, but sadly in law that’s little defence.
(IANAL, usual caveats apply. Seek legal advice, blah, blah.)
Data doesn't have copyright, but in europe a database such as this is protected by the 96/9/EC Database Directive (most members states implemented this around 1999/2000).
This includes non-electronic databases, so even if you scanned all this data from timetables published on paper, they'd still be protected by database rights -- and you don't have the right to use substantial parts of it without a license. (nor does your competitor).
(Assuming a government organization has database rights in the same way a person or corporation can have them).
There was this whole thing with that here in NY with the MTA. They were claiming that their time tables are copyrighted, but after it went in/out of courts it was determined that only the complied versions are and then they opened up their data files for developers. The time a train arrives and departs does not fall under copyright. I'm not sure how things are in the UK but I'd expect them to be fairly similar.
Some lawyer friends have advised me of the same here in Ireland*
I'd be happy to have someone with some authority in Dublin Bus even notice it though!
* we're not in the UK ;)
Semi-related: about a week after I had moved to Dublin from the US I made an offhand remark in a shop about being in the UK and was very quickly corrected. I quickly learned my lesson and have moved on to other cultural mistakes. :-)
Haha sorry about that. I thought I saw someone else in the comments talking about the UK and got thrown off.
Similar or not, a lot of very highly-paid lawyers would love to argue over this for weeks.
My general argument is this whole situation is not as clear-cut and black-and-white as the developer in question asserts, however ‘moral’ or justified his objection to second developer’s seemingly less defensible actions in copying his work.
There seems little ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ here, just very subtle shades of grey and legal interpretation of who owns which rights to various elements of data, code, design and structure.
Dublin is the capital city of Eire.
You are only technically correct. Eire is the Irish name for Ireland, but is not commonly used in English. In Ireland, everyone calls Ireland Ireland. Similarly, the language is Irish, not Gaelic. You only hear the words "Eire" and "Gaelic" used outside Ireland, typically in America (except for the small section of the population who actually speak Irish).
If you were to use the Irish term Eire, then it would make sense to use the Irish name for Dublin, which is Baile Atha Cliath, or Dubh Linn, depending.
I'm not sure this is correct, but I had the impression that "Eire" in English was used to talk about the island of Ireland.
I think this is something I just sort of picked up though -- so it's entirely possible I'm totally out to lunch.
Mor elike the oppsoite. Ireland is the whole island and Eire is the Republic of Ireland. It also depends on one's politics. Londonderry or Derry ? My t-shirt says "People's Republic of Derry", though round here it gets mis-read as "People's Republic of Derby" which is a neighbouring city!
Being technically correct is all I hope for. As an Englishman I always write Eire but say Ireland.
That doesn't justify others stealing from him though.
no, but it means he cant bring any action against the guy if he owns no IP on the content either.
EDIT: except perhaps the database schema
IANAL, but it is my understanding that you own the copyright on the modifications you make when creating a derivative work, regardless of whether or not the derivative work is itself a copyright violation.
But if the original work was a collection of facts that is not protected by copyright, then your derivative work might not be protected by copyright either. Lists of facts are not protected by copyright in the US.
This is true but mostly an abuse of copyright protections in my opinion.
Look at how Westlaw gained private control over the dissemination of public legal decisions through standardizing and copyrighting their presentation of those decisions.
I happy see people lose at putting up copyright gates of this sort, whatever legal right they might have.
And without those IP permissions in place, in the form of written approval by the bus company to use their data, he risks opening one almighty can of worms…