Copyright Decision In Australia Vindicates 3d-Party EPG Provider 66
angry tapir writes "In a landmark decision, the High Court of Australia has ruled that Electronic Program Guide (EPG) vendor IceTV has not violated the copyright of Channel 9 by reproducing programming information in its third-party EPG. This case has been running since May 2006, when the Nine Network alleged that IceTV's electronic program guide infringed the copyright of Channel 9's television schedule."
This is great (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Wonder how long till they start populating the data properly?
Re: (Score:2)
What do you mean by "populating the data properly"?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
You wrote your grabber wrong ;-)
When the then-current Aus grabber (JavaXMLTV?) stopped chasing the moving target of the TV guide websites when they went to Javascript 'encryption' in about 2005 or 2006, I - a half-arsed programmer if ever there was one - sat down and decided to write my own. One week, and a bit of lateral thinking* later, I had a working grabber. Outside o
Anonymous Coward (Score:2, Interesting)
This is great news for us Australians who use the IceTV service - its adds TIVO like features to PVR recorders.
Now Channel Nine might actually play nice with them
suddenbreakoutofcommonsense Justified (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't copyright a fact.
To think anyone could argue over that for three years...
Re: (Score:2)
You cannot copyright facts but somehow you can copyright a phone book.
Re: (Score:2)
There are two types of copyright, "original works" and "collective work".
The copyright of original works is for just that, original work, like a song, or a book, or a program.
A Collective work is a collection of original works, like the "hits of the 90's" compilation of songs.
The copyright of a collective work is much weaker than for an original work, it only protects the collection or arrangement of the original works, and you still need copyright permission to use the original works in your collection.
The
So only including 18hrs is legal? (Score:1)
If ICE just included 6am to 12am it would be legal?
its not identical, but midnight to 6am is useless informercials and evil xian funamentalist brainwashing tv.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually this decision appears to disapprove of the phone book case (Desktop Marketing), though as they say IceTV didn't dispute the copyright of the TV schedule, they just disputed that they had infringed it, so the court didn't consider the question in depth here. But maybe it'll be overturned in the future.
"It is by no means apparent that the law even before the 1911 Act was to any different effect to that for which the Digital Alliance contends. It may be that the reasoning in Desktop Marketing with respect to compilations is out of line with the understanding of copyright law over many years. These reasons explain the need to treat with some caution the emphasis in Desktop Marketing upon "labour and expense" per se and upon misappropriation. However, in the light of the admission of Ice that the Weekly Schedule was an original literary work, this is not an appropriate occasion to take any further the subject of originality in copyright works."
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Laws in your country might be different, but you cannot copyright a phonebook here either. You can, though, copyright the organisation (the "database" if you want), but not the data itself, unless you created the data yourself, too.
You didn't create the person's name, phone number or address. But you created the database entry, and that entry is yours. Not the data within, though. So anyone could take your phonebook and use it as a source for his own database of a phone book.
If your head hurts already, don'
Re: (Score:2)
Not strictly correct. Anyone could take the same data set and use that as a source for his own phone book. However, they generally can't take your phonebook and use it as the data source, as they would be likely copying your 'collation' of the data.
This is why, for example, map products or baseballs stats have deliberate minor inaccuracies. These are enough to prove that someone copied the data rather than collat
Re: (Score:2)
So anyone could take your phonebook and use it as a source for his own database of a phone book.
They can still get you if they faked some data and you copied the fake data. Fake data aren't facts and thus protected by copyright, so if you copy the fake data, you've violated copyright.
This is done all over the place. Dictionaries will have fake words, phone books will have fake names, numbers, or addresses, even books reprinted from the public domain may change a word or a sentence or a spelling slightly and get you for infringement that way.
So if you're going to copy someone else's collection of facts
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You can't copyright a fact.
That is true, however a TV guide doesn't become a fact until after the shows have been broadcast. Before that time it is a plan.
But I would go one step further. Australian TV networks are terrible at sticking to their schedule. They consistently air their shows late, swap shows to a different time/night without warning or show a different episode that the one that was advertised. I generally consider a TV guide to be a work of fiction.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It correctly identifies that facts can not be copyright, even when "colocated" with original material that can be. However, the "original material" may consist of the presentation of those facts, such as their order. Consider a poem that consists of well know facts, but presented in a dramatic and original order.
They determined that IceTV had indeed copied facts
Re: (Score:2)
don't networks have whole departments that plan the lineup and scheduling? I believe that there is much work in determining what shows will air and in what order.
Re: (Score:2)
don't networks have whole departments that plan the lineup and scheduling? I believe that there is much work in determining what shows will air and in what order.
I don't supposed anyone knows a quicker way to say "That is a stupid suggestion and you are stupid for suggesting it"? The TV guide is just a statement of what the schedule looks like. It's not used to plan the schedule, it reflects the plan. You might as well say that a great deal of work went into making the price list at your local agricultural supply. It's true that the prices are based on a variety of factors as diverse as the rainfall in the midwest and the price of beef in Japan, but that doesn't gra
Way to go Australia (Score:5, Informative)
I recall a recent story about UK train schedules being made available by a third party, which *was* deemed an infringement.
You guys got it right. Thumbs-up.
Re: (Score:2)
Same thing, A Collection of Facts can be copyrighted. This has been tested under Australian law in a case where a company was copying the phone book.
Re: (Score:2)
It might have been different if they had considered it as copying the scheduling database as a whole, since it might have ammounted to a substantial part then (but I doubt it).
Re: (Score:1, Informative)
Factual information can only be copyrighted by the Crown, who gets special treatment.
Legal whotnots (Score:5, Informative)
Can be found here [austlii.edu.au].
Well done Ice TV.
Anonymous Coward (Score:2, Funny)
Now if they could just get the stations to start and end shows at the advertised times!
Re: (Score:2)
It was ridiculous in the first place! (Score:3, Interesting)
It ENCOURAGES PEOPLE TO WATCH THEIR STATION!
Are they so scared their programming is that bad, that they don't want people to know what they have on?
It's one of the most stupid things a company has ever done, it's not like sharing the content, it's a bloody listing.
Someone needs to slap channel 9 on the upside of the head, wtf were they thinking?
Re: (Score:2)
Title | Recorded | Last Recorded
TEN Digital | 188 | April 21 2009
7 Digital | 40 | April 20 2009
Nine Digital | 34 | April 11 2009
ONE Digital | 24 | March 10 2009
Nine HD | 11 | April 20 2009
SBS | 10 | March 31 2009
7 HD Digital | 10 | April 10 2009
ABC1 | 10 | April 12 2009
ONE HD | 1 | March 16 2009
Sure there is a bit of a bias to Ten Digital as My partner enjoys Neighbours, but still I regularly missed re
Re: (Score:2)
But not their website. And since TV might one day be replaced by online media, that could be a legitimate worry. Still, I agree that preventing people from obtaining a TV schedule is not an option.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I can imagine. Many of the official UK sites for TV schedules are horrible too.
Re: (Score:2)
And when you reply to give feed back to shows (this irks me particularly on current affairs type shows), they give you a 8mm x 5mm box to fit a response into. gah
Re: (Score:1)
But with this ruling, they basically will not have a monopoly over that service, and other companies can compete on equal footing. And a good call too!
Re:It was ridiculous in the first place! (Score:5, Insightful)
I equate charging for a TV guide to the same thing as charging me for the price list of a store, it's lunacy.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
What a wonderful Idea! Charge for the price list! Brilliant!
Why hasn't anyone thought of this before???
Re: (Score:2)
They have [directbuy.com].
Re: (Score:2)
It ENCOURAGES PEOPLE TO WATCH THEIR STATION!
I think that what they were worried about is that it encourages people to record their station with a PVR and then skip the advertising.
TIVO in Australia has ad skipping disabled. To carry the new "Freeview" logo and gain access to the enhanced Freeview EPG (when it becomes available!) an STB cannot permit ad skipping.
A non-freeview box with IceTV gives both ad skipping and a good EPG
Re: (Score:2)
It's Channel 9, so I'm going with "Yes".
This suit has always been ridiculous. (Score:3, Insightful)
To AC (Score:3, Informative)
So, for example: your article about the beauty of yesterday's sunset at 7:45pm can be copyrighted. But anyone else can read your article, and in turn write that yesterday's sunrise was at 7:45pm, because that basic fact is not copyrightable.
That is a sufficiently thorough explanation, as it really is a very basic element of law. I
Re: (Score:2)
Train timetables (Score:1)
Could somebody more legal-savvy than myself please explain what implications this ruling might have for e.g. this problem [slashdot.org]? Especially since para 28 in the ruling [austlii.edu.au] states that:
Re: (Score:2)
FunkWorks appears to be an almost identical case to this, they are copying simple facts that are arranged in chronological order, where that order is the natural and obvious order for such facts.
They might have a bit of a problem in that they are copying a large part of the timetable (all weekdays I beleive, but not weekends), but I can't really see RailCorp being able to claim that they put much effort into compiling the timetable - it's not that big.
Re:Train timetables (Score:4, Informative)
What the court has said is that although collections of facts can be copyrighted, the question is to the degree of originality in the expression of those facts.
In the case of the TV guide, the alleged infringement consisted of two pieces of information; the program title and the time of transmission. The title is supplied by the program's creator; not Channel 9 and the time can only be expressed in a standard way (Channel 9 could hardly claim copyright of "7:30 pm"); Channel 9 has therefore not exercised creativity or originality.
The train timetable is much the same. There are two pieces of information; a station name (which is much like the program name) and a departure time. Cityrail has not exercised any creativity or originality in the expression of this information.
It is the lack of originality of expression that results in the information not being copyright; it is not a fair use claim, so the amount of information copied does not matter.
Re:Train timetables (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
Thank God? (Score:2)
story tag: "thankgod"
I'm imagining the person who wrote this tag sweating and pacing, then finding out about this judgment and falling to his knees, shedding tears of relief and joy, and looking to the sky thanking god for this miracle.
LS
Re:Idiotic (Score:4, Insightful)
What are channel9 complaining about... More people having access to their programming? Surely that's a good thing
Not if they don't sit down and watch the advertisements.