UK Court Says Sports Schedules Can Be Covered By Copyright
from the copyrighting-facts dept
While in the US you can't copyright facts, elsewhere, it's not always so direct. Over in Europe, they've long had a database right on the collections of factual information -- despite the evidence that these do a lot more harm than good. This has been known for many years, but still Europe lets people copyright collections of data. While the US has rejected the idea that "sweat of the brow" gives you a copyright (instead it needs to be original work), Europe is a bit more open to this. Of course, that leads to some absolutely ridiculous results.Copycense points us to the news that a UK court has now said that football schedules are covered by copyright. Yes, you read that right. The dates and times of a football match are covered by copyright, and if a news outlet wants to list the schedule... they have to pay up.
Amusingly, the court tries to pretend that this is more than just "sweat of the brow":
"The process of preparing fixture lists involves very significant labor and skill in satisfying the multitude of often competing requirements of those involved," Judge Christopher Floyd said. "(It is) not mere sweat of the brow, by which I mean the application of rigid criteria to the processing of data. The quality of the solution depends in part on the skill of those involved."But that seems ridiculous no matter how you look at it. The end result is purely factual information, and preventing people from reporting on basic factual information seems like a huge restriction on basic speech and the press. Now, the UK may not recognize freedom of expression as being as big a deal as it is in the US, but it's hard to justify telling people they can't report when a football match is happening because they haven't paid up.
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Filed Under: copyright, sports schedules, uk
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Well, here in the U.S. that would be anyone who wanted to provide a useful service for the fans of the sport. Like every newspaper in the country.
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Who needs a schedule disseminated more?
There is a soccer game at some point this week to be played by two opposing teams in an arena somewhere in the area. We are not allowed to communicate any more information. If you want to know more contact the league president at his home number which is.....
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Re: Who needs a schedule disseminated more?
No, his home number is copyright too. Who would have a phone number if it weren't for copyright? Nobody, and as a result nobody would call each other.
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Manchester and Arsenal are playing at 3:+10 PM.
Hell, you could use the 'sweat of your brow' argument to keep people from reporting THAT.
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You can call it a derivative work and claim it's protected.
"you could use the 'sweat of your brow' argument to keep people from reporting THAT."
Yeah, you had to go through the trouble of adding ten minutes, that's a lot of work. You deserve to be compensated for all that mental effort.
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Yeah, 'derivative work' is the devil-in-the-details of copyright. Everything is derivative, to one degree or other.
"Yeah, you had to go through the trouble of adding ten minutes, that's a lot of work. You deserve to be compensated for all that mental effort."
Hey, I'd have done much more than the people who just relayed the actual times.
That said, I like the Time-10 idea. It's sort of how movie times work.
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That could be considered fraud? Perhaps if you said, "the game begins approximately Time + 10 min with a margin of error of 10 min" it won't be fraud because it's approximately true. It won't be infringement because it's a derivative work?
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Leaving aside the incredibly nebulous notion of "skilled" labor as apart from some other kind of labor, all it takes for something to be considered copyrighted by this court is that it was skillfully prepared?
That's quite far from the criteria in any definition of copyrighted work that I've ever heard.
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typical convo at work
Oh, I'm going to the game. Wanna come ?
Yeah, sure. when is it ?
Ahhh, I can't tell you. That is copyrighted information and I would be breaking the law if I told you.
Hey, if you dont want me to go, then just say so. But do not make up such stupid crap. What an ass !
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Not quite that simple
But, to come back to the UK case, if you read the case itself, you find that in fact the people who prepared the fixture list were instrumental in working with the teams themselves to set the dates for the fixtures. So, on the Geist sweat of the brow test, this is not just a case of copyrighting existing facts. Decision here http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2010/841.html
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Re: Not quite that simple
I don't see how this changes anything.
"So, on the Geist sweat of the brow test, this is not just a case of copyrighting existing facts."
Why not?
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Re: Not quite that simple
yeah, and in a movie theater, those who prepared the movie hours and posted them online were instrumental in working with the movie theater administrators to set and/or collect the movie hours. So they deserve a copyright on those as well, for all their hard work.
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Spoiler
This would result in great confusion and embarrassment to the league - who would have to back down.
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Re: Spoiler
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fixture list copyright
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