Google, the owner of the traffic app Waze, has managed to beat back a copyright lawsuit filed by lesser-known rival PhantomAlert.
Back in September 2015 PhantomAlert sued Google over allegations of copyright infringement. Google purchased Waze in June 2013 for over $1 billion. PhantomAlert alleged that, after a failed data-sharing deal between itself and Waze collapsed in 2010, Waze apparently stole PhantomAlert's "points of interest" database.
In a judicial order filed earlier this month, the San Francisco-based federal judge found that PhantomAlert could not allege a copyright claim on simple facts of where different places actually are.
Does this mean databases of people are fair game, too?
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Judge, Siding With Google, Refuses to Shut Down Waze in Wake of Alleged Theft
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by FrogBlast on Wednesday December 23 2015, @08:15PM
The raw listings in the phone book aren't copyrightable.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MostCynical on Wednesday December 23 2015, @09:02PM
Oh, really?
This comes from the Australian whitepages:
3. Copyright
The material contained in this site is the copyright of Sensis or its licensors. Apart from any fair dealing permitted by the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced or reused for any purpose whatsoever without the written permission of Sensis. You must not:
by any means, data mine or conduct automated searches on this site or the data contained in it; or
reuse, export, transmit, duplicate or publish the data in any way without the permission of Sensis.
http://mobile.whitepages.com.au/help/legal.action [whitepages.com.au]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday December 23 2015, @09:07PM
Luckily, the US doesn't follow Australian law. The US has some stupid laws to be sure, but this is one place where they got things right: factual data cannot be protected by copyright. The presentation of the data can, but not the raw data. It's just stupid: that means that no one else can publish a phone book or directory of any kind once someone else already has, unless their phone book has listings which don't appear at all in the first one.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday December 23 2015, @09:39PM
Which is why you can find so many reverse phone look-up websites providing free phone information, right ?
NOT.
If there is anything Google could shut down it would be the reverse phone lookup scamsters. Just gather all the data and publish it in the search engine. But nobody does that on any scale. You might find a few small phone companies that provide this, but by and large it is always sold for 5 to 9 dollars per lookup, (and often obsolete info).
I suspect phone numbers are some special case, since they actually are rented, not owned by the subscriber.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 23 2015, @10:10PM
Page 13 of the ruling has a summary of Feist Publ’ns, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., 499 U.S. 340, 361 (1991), in which one company copied from a phone book published by another company. The Supreme Court, overruling lower courts, said that listings in the white pages weren't copyrightable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 24 2015, @12:11AM
Which is why you can find so many reverse phone look-up websites providing free phone information, right ?
NOT.
Would it have killed you to google first [google.com] and pontificate second?
I do reverse number lookups all the time. Most of them are cell and voip numbers so I don't get a hit because those are unpublished. But the ones with regular listings are easy to reverse.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 24 2015, @12:40AM
Shut the fuck up SJW faggot.
Everyone knows facts cannot be copyrighted under US copyright law.
It's one of the basics.
Guess you haven't been to law school.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 24 2015, @07:43AM
"Luckily, the US doesn't follow Australian law."
It's great that the US understands that it doesn't have to follow foreign laws. Now if only we can make it understand that foreign countries doesn't have to follow US laws. :)
(Score: 2) by SecurityGuy on Wednesday December 23 2015, @09:37PM
A company writing something in a book doesn't actually make it law.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Wednesday December 23 2015, @08:31PM
PhantomAlert could not allege a copyright claim on simple facts of where different places actually are.
Sounds like Google already had these points in their own system, and probably a boatload more, with a great deal more accuracy.
Given that, would the result be the same if the shoe was on the other foot? Would Google's database of places be protected by copyright if someone managed, (by legal means) to obtain a copy, and used it?
The compilation of public information data in a database has already been ruled to copyright-able in other cases.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_States#Compilations_of_facts_and_the_sweat_of_the_brow_doctrine [wikipedia.org]
http://www.cendi.gov/publications/04-8copyright.html#214 [cendi.gov]
So if google extracted the raw information, and built their own database, and no longer uses the original catalog, they are in the clear.
But if google still provides access to the original database in any way, they may have a problem with an appeal.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 23 2015, @09:57PM
Seems like there is some creative work in choosing which facts are interesting.
Presumably, the data in question does not include every building you pass by.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 24 2015, @04:26AM
When I use Google Maps, Google's servers put a copyright notice on each image they send me. Yet maps as a whole, similarly to the POIs at issue, are essentially facts. I wonder whether PhantomALERT intends to appeal this. If it stands, might it not become a precedent for making maps difficult to copyright?
(Score: 1) by gtomorrow on Thursday December 24 2015, @02:40PM
After reading the various comments posted thus far, i'm thinking the fine line that most are missing here is yes, facts may not be copyrightable under US law but an original compilation of those facts may be, hence publishing a phone book/database copying the numbers straight from another phone book/datbase is infringement whereas publishing said phone book/database from original compiled sources (i.e., YOU do the compilation legwork) is not.
/IANAL (but nevertheless you all owe me US$250) :D