Open Geodata in Europe - Inspire directive

[David Gibson]

In article "Open Geodata in Europe - Inspire directive" in <!cave-
surveying>, on Thu, 11 May 2006
Andy Waddington <surveys at pennine.demon.co.uk> wrote

>What these public bodies _collect_ are facts. Not original artistic or
>literary creations. There can be no copyright in those data.

Not in the data, but there is copyright in the writing-down of the data.

>No conceivable argument about that.

Wrong. :-)

Andy, I do not disagree with your argument about making the data
available (which I hope will forestall the usual 1000 word reply from
you :-) but on the above point I think you are mistaken.

I think you might be misunderstanding the use of the term "literary
work" in the (English) copyright act. If I collect some facts and write
them down, that is a literary work within the meaning of the act and I
have full copyright protection under English law. No conceivable
argument about *that*.

You can, of course, go and collect the same facts, and write them down
yourself, and have copyright in *your* work. But if you copy *my* work,
it is a breach of my copyright.  

I might, of course, be hard-pressed to tell if you had copied my work or
actually gone and collected the data yourself, but that doesnt alter the
principle.  And we're talking about proper collections of facts here,
not simply writing someone's postal address on an envelope.

-- 
David Gibson