2016-04-06 18:05 GMT+02:00 Castelo Branco <michelcastelobranco(a)gmail.com>om>:
The decision
specifically and repeatedly states that the commercial
aspect is irrelevant, as such a database "typically has a not
insignificant commercial value" – whether the images in this
particular case are or can be used commercially or not. See paragraphs
21 and 23.
//Johan Jönsson
--
Note that "not insignificant" = significant. The decision points exactly
that the commercial aspect is relevant, and the artists should have
participation on it.
"The court finds that the artists are entitled to that value"[1], this is
what the decision says, at least according to The Guardian. I couldn't
understand the original decision, even if i have had access to it.
What is found in these paragraphs you've mentioned?
In these paragraphs (and I think I meant 20 and 23, though 21 is also
relevant – sorry) you find the courts argument that the commercial or
lack of commercial aspect is irrelevant and that the scale is what
matters. The decision is rather explicit on this point (e.g. "Huruvida
förfogandet sker i kommersiellt syfte saknar betydelse"). The quote
you refer to is regarding the fact that we're talking about a
commercial scale: It's not about the specific ability to reuse content
from this database, but the court argues that at a certain size,
there's an inherent potential commercial value that the artists are
entitled to. This argument is not made in the context of free licenses
or others being able to reuse the content, but refers to the scope of
offentligkonst.se.
Now, I'm not a lawyer, so there's always a chance I could be mistaken,
but I have read both the article you refer to and the decision and
while there's nothing wrong with the former, as a newspaper article,
it's still a shorter article about ten pages of legal text regarding a
fairly intricate piece of copyright law. I would strongly advise
against doing legal interpretation without having access to the
decision in question, or a good translation thereof, because there are
definitely aspects the newspaper article doesn't touch.
//Johan Jönsson
--