31
jventura wrote:...about the copyright of crude data (read facts), there is a specific case where it was established that information without a minimum of original creativity can't be copyrighted. In http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_v._Rural , the case was about a phone book company which copied entirely the work of the other. The decision was that facts aren't copyrightable, so it was legal to copy the phone listing in its entirity. But one thing is the list of numbers, the other is the physical book. Only the physical book was copyrighted!
Exactly. Astrolabe is confusing the data with the arrangement of data. In other words you wouldn't want to come out with your own book with the title "American Atlas" with the same data in a book in substantially the same arrangement because it would be like stealing a "brand" like those cheap knock offs of Levi jeans in Russia.
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC

32
There are facts, but then there is also expression, which is copyrightable. If the database adopted the exact same manner of expressing the time change facts it could be construed a breach of copyright. Time changes are something that can be expressed in various ways; with telephone numbers, there is less room for variation.

Further to this, Astrolabe appear from earlier postings in this strand to be arguing that not all the entries in their listings were recognised as facts in the public domain but were instead their judgements based on their research into areas where the true facts were not entirely clear. If these judgements had themselves been copied wholesale to a database that was then used commercially, Astrolabe could argue in court that their copyright had been breached.

Even if some changes had then been made to the database subsequently, it would only be necessary for Astrolabe to demonstrate that parts of the work to which they own the copyright, above and beyond the public domain facts reported within, had been replicated by the database, for them to stand a chance of a judgement in their favour.

Companies by their nature tend to aggressively defend their intellectual property and copyrights, and what Astrolabe is doing here in spirit appears on the surface little different to me from any other copyright lawsuit launched by a publishing company. It is arguably only because the disputed material in question includes a substantial or majority portion of public domain facts that this case is a particularly grey-looking area compared with most.

If the Olson database is on any of the technical grounds suggested above in breach of Astrolabe's copyright, it would seem that it would not take a huge amount of time and effort for the team behind the database to make changes that eliminate the direct sourcing of their material in Astrolabe's prior work. This would then resolve the problem. Astrolabe clearly cannot copyright facts on time changes in general or prevent other software makers from bypassing the option to pay for a license to use their work and instead using independent research or primary public domain sources. I hope for the sake of Curtis and others standing to be affected by the outcome of the ongoing lawsuit that it doesn't drag on too long before some such solution can be arrived at.

33
Philip Graves wrote:I hope for the sake of Curtis and others standing to be affected by the outcome of the ongoing lawsuit that it doesn't drag on too long before some such solution can be arrived at.
Phillip,

Did you see Gary Christen's letter to me reproduced at the beginning of this thread?

For years ACS was touted to be highly accurate and now the company admits that much of it is "creative writing". If it isn't a fact, then its fiction. The only way to make a fact into fiction is to falsify it in some way. So by their own admission the ACS data is "creatively mistaken" much of the time in where the time changes occur which should make every astrologers skin crawl. It is extreme hypocrisy to assert the accuracy of the atlas on the one hand for years in astrological journals and on the other try to say its creative writing when the issue comes up in court. It is intellectually dishonest.

I am familiar with the format of the Olson database having read practically every line that Paul Eggert wrote in it, and I have the American Atlas and I can say that the formats that the data were recorded in are completely different. Olson used the printed books to do the research. They may have some of the same "creative facts" as I'm sure is the case with Janus, Kepler, etc in their data if they all want to be in reasonable agreement, but the way it is recorded in the database portion is completely different.

For example (from the Olson database):

# Part of Kentucky left its clocks alone in 1974.
# This also includes Clark, Floyd, and Harrison counties in Indiana.
# Rule NAME FROM TO TYPE IN ON AT SAVE LETTER
Rule Louisville 1921 only - May 1 2:00 1:00 D
Rule Louisville 1921 only - Sep 1 2:00 0 S
Rule Louisville 1941 1961 - Apr lastSun 2:00 1:00 D
Rule Louisville 1941 only - Sep lastSun 2:00 0 S
Rule Louisville 1946 only - Jun 2 2:00 0 S
Rule Louisville 1950 1955 - Sep lastSun 2:00 0 S
Rule Louisville 1956 1960 - Oct lastSun 2:00 0 S
# Zone NAME GMTOFF RULES FORMAT [UNTIL]
Zone America/Kentucky/Louisville -5:43:02 - LMT 1883 Nov 18 12:16:58
-6:00 US C%sT 1921
-6:00 Louisville C%sT 1942
-6:00 US C%sT 1946
-6:00 Louisville C%sT 1961 Jul 23 2:00
-5:00 - EST 1968
-5:00 US E%sT 1974 Jan 6 2:00
-6:00 1:00 CDT 1974 Oct 27 2:00
-5:00 US E%sT

You will find that this format is very different from the way the American Atlas displays this data, so check your American Atlas for Louisville, KY.

And in case anybody tries to assert that I can be sued for reproducing the above excerpt, let me say that this falls under "fair use" under copyright law.
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC

34
zoidsoft wrote: So by their own admission the ACS data is "creatively mistaken" much of the time in where the time changes occur which should make every astrologers skin crawl. It is extreme hypocrisy to assert the accuracy of the atlas on the one hand for years in astrological journals and on the other try to say its creative writing when the issue comes up in court. It is intellectually dishonest.
Curtis,

so, you also understood from their email that they do confirm that some of their historical data may have been falsified? This is going from bad to worse to Astrolabe and ACS Atlas. To some astrologers it means that their "historical" charts, delineations, etc., may be wrong. We are talking about data previous to 1970, correct?

Also, to reinforce your answer, the Olson database is rewritten very differently from ACS atlases, is more machine readable, and most of those historical errors have been posteriorly corrected by members of the open community. More than anything, ACS data was a starting point, and currently Olson db resembles loosely anything of its ACS past..

Jo?o Ventura

35
jventura wrote:so, you also understood from their email that they do confirm that some of their historical data may have been falsified? This is going from bad to worse to Astrolabe and ACS Atlas. To some astrologers it means that their "historical" charts, delineations, etc., may be wrong. We are talking about data previous to 1970, correct?
For the most part, prior to 1970, yes, but there are occasionally problems with time change info all the way to the present, just less frequently.

False data in maps for example only confirm whether something has been copied or not. It doesn't necessarily mean infringement occurred. Olson readily admits to using the ACS data so this sort of confirmation is redundant. I think Astrolabe may be misrepresenting the nature of their protection of the ACS Atlas in copyright... In other words how is it protected? The argument that the method of obtaining the data is a proprietary method is masquerading as a "sweat of the brow" argument and not a "uniqueness" argument, because it doesn't matter if the method to gather the data is unique. The data itself has to be unique. For the method to matter, Astrolabe should have applied for a patent, not copyright.

The sweat of the brow argument is not allowed in the USA so it doesn't matter if the individual items match and I think it doesn't matter that it is a fiction either. I'm pretty sure that the nature of copyright protection in databases is to preserve the data relations between tables and amongst entries as a whole, not as each item taken from one location to another. There has to be substantial matching and relationships between relational databases have to be preserved.

Just imagine if Kepler happened to match Solar Fire for a single entry, then there would be infringement of the ACS data by Kepler if the data was false? I don't think so, because Kepler will undoubtedly have some matching results out of the hundreds of thousands of entries, it is a matter of "how much" agreement there is. Too much and there is infringement, but accidental matches or even intentional matches but in a different relationship I believe would not be considered infringement.
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC

36
It also occurred to me that if something is stated as a fact such as is the case with the ACS Atlas, then it probably has the status of "fact" even if there are mistakes or creative "inventions" of made up "facts". There are undoubtedly mistakes in any database made up of facts. This doesn't make it "creative writing" and I doubt that the fact that it was apparently intentional makes a difference here. Otherwise there would be "gotchas" with databases everywhere and everyone could bypass the "fact" clause intended by the courts to try to usurp the "sweat of the brow argument". When something is stated in a factual manner such as a database, you can't reasonably expect someone to think its "creative". I'm convinced that the court will see this for what this is.

But since Astrolabe states that it has no problems with current TZ data, only data pre-2000, I will go ahead and make updates to the Terran Atlas for the recent changes in Russia, Hebron, Gaza, etc... Should be out in a couple of days.
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC

38
zoidsoft wrote:This is a summation by David Braverman (from the Olson TZ community) on the case:

http://www.thedailyparker.com/PermaLink ... 8a641.aspx
And a very good one! It really shows the contradiction of Astrolabe's position, how fragile it is, and how badly they perform to harm a community project for which nobody never earned any money from that!

But sadly, astrology and astrologers comes out again harmed from this. Greate service Astrolabe is doing for us all!

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zoidsoft wrote:ICANN, Inc (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has just announced that it is taking over management of the Olson Time Zone database:

http://www.icann.org/en/news/releases/r ... t11-en.pdf
I'm sure ICANN knows about the lawsuit, so they should have refered to it in their communication, like something about the legality of the tz database has no problem, etc. I will google search for it, however..

Things keep getting worse and worse for Astrolabe's side. What lawyer or astrologer adviced them to do this?! Whoever he was, did not do his job properly.. :shock:

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jventura wrote:I'm sure ICANN knows about the lawsuit, so they should have refered to it in their communication, like something about the legality of the tz database has no problem, etc. I will google search for it, however..
The discussion has been going on for a couple of years now on the tz mailing list as to what to do when Arthur Olson retires from NIH (where to host the FTP, license agreement wording, etc) so this has been in the works for a while.

Robert Elz had this to say about the transition to IANA / ICANN due to Arthur's pending retirement on the tz mailing list:
"Again, all this is just continuing the process started way back in August, 2009. There's no question but that the events of the past week or so have added some impetus to the process, but that's all.

I have been in communication (a little indirect for now, but it is happening) with IANA / ICANN people, who I believe have also had some contact with Arthur. When there is anything more substantial to report, I'll certainly let everyone know."
I've been thinking that maybe Gary just didn't understand (the nature of copyright, etc) what he is doing or he has a lousy lawyer. When Philip I Frankel (my copyright lawyer) submitted my TX forms (registered copyright) back around 2002 or so, he told me that doing so doesn't confirm copyright or the validity of claims. It only establishes the evidence and provides certain legal benefits (such as free prosecution for the first 90 days, higher damage awards, etc) should the issue ever wind up in court and to not sign such a form unless you are sure you are the rightful owner (doing so falsely is copyfraud). It doesn't establish as Gary said:
"The question of whether the material is ?copyrightable?: has already been decided by the U.S. Copyright Office in the affirmative."
The question of whether/what material is copyrightable is decided in court should the issue come up, not by the US Copyright Office. All created works are granted "presumptive" copyright upon creation, registered or not.
Curtis Manwaring
Zoidiasoft Technologies, LLC