[WikiEN-l] Copyright question

[Daniel R. Tobias]

On 2 Apr 2007 at 12:03:04 +0100, Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:

> >How *on earth* do you get this as being a violation of copyright? The
> >BBC don't own facts about the show.
> 
> The same way that the UK Top Ten is the property of the company that
> publishes it, and a list of No. 1 hits in the UK is asserted by them
> to violate that copyright.

Under U.S. precedent (the Feist decision) (of course, law in the U.K. 
and elsewhere may vary or be unsettled) if the selection and 
arrangement of a list is entirely by objective criteria which could 
be performed mechanically, then the list is factual information that 
is not copyrightable (the case in question involved a telephone 
directory, including all listed numbers in a given town arranged 
alphabetically).  If there's some subjectivity involved (like a list 
of the best songs of all time according to some critic or group of 
critics) then it's probably copyrightable.


-- 
== Dan ==
Dan's Mail Format Site: http://mailformat.dan.info/
Dan's Web Tips: http://webtips.dan.info/
Dan's Domain Site: http://domains.dan.info/