Astrolabe Drops Lawsuit Over Time Zones, Promises Not To Sue Again

from the go-go-eff dept

Wed, Feb 22nd 2012 7:03pm — Mike Masnick

Back in October, you may recall that software company Astrolabe claimed copyright over the time zone database and sued the volunteer maintainers of the public time zone database that is used by basically everyone to properly set the time. ICANN took over the database, and EFF took on the case of the two volunteers who were sued. Today EFF announced that Astrolabe has dropped the case and promised not to sue going forward.

In a statement, Astrolabe said, "Astrolabe's lawsuit against Mr. Olson and Mr. Eggert was based on a flawed understanding of the law. We now recognize that historical facts are no one's property and, accordingly, are withdrawing our Complaint. We deeply regret the disruption that our lawsuit caused for the volunteers who maintain the TZ database, and for Internet users."

In other words, the EFF did a typically excellent job explaining the basics of copyright law to Astrolabe, and/or its own lawyers realized that this case was a complete loser that was going to fail badly.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: copyright, data, facts, time zones
Companies: astrolabe, eff, icann

29 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

That Anonymous Coward (profile), 22 Feb 2012 @ 7:11pm

In other words, our lawyers promised us a slam dunk case. If not for those meddling kids at EFF, we would have gotten away with it. We are sorry we look like complete tools, and excuse me I need to go retract some email demands for cash from others using the data we claimed was ours.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Lorpius Prime (profile), 22 Feb 2012 @ 7:33pm

Corporations may not yet have the ability to copyright facts. But if they develop or acquire it in the future, absurd lawsuits will become far more likely, according to legal experts.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 22 Feb 2012 @ 7:33pm

Re:
or even more so, we had a dumb case which we believed the people we were suing wouldn't have the cash or knowhow to defend but since people with the capability of mounting a defense came on board we are now humbly withdrawing whilst simultaneously spinning the issue in an attempt to make ourselves look a teensy little bit less bad.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Torg (profile), 22 Feb 2012 @ 7:35pm

Re:
If historical facts ever do become copyrightable, who would own the fact that historical facts became copyrightable?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Torg (profile), 22 Feb 2012 @ 7:37pm

Re: Re:
Being officially quoted as saying "We now recognize that historical facts are no one's property" is never going to make anyone look even a little less bad.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 22 Feb 2012 @ 7:39pm

Ignorance of the law is no excuse. Astrolabe should face charges of copyright fraud, and be receive the Maximum punishment allowed by law. Then maybe some of these bogus lawsuits would not be brought up. Make an example of these criminals.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
That Anonymous Coward (profile), 22 Feb 2012 @ 7:45pm

Re: Re: Re:
And this just in... it is now a historical fact that Astrolabe is run by a bunch of money hungry asshats who have no understanding of the law. They wanted to steal the work of others to enrich themselves by trying to lock facts up.

Or would that be a hysterically funny fact?

Copyright, is it sending us towards a new Dark Ages?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 22 Feb 2012 @ 8:04pm

asstrolube?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 22 Feb 2012 @ 8:27pm

Re:
receive the Maximum punishment allowed by law

So, a slap on the wrist, and drinks all around?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
DH's Love Child (profile), 22 Feb 2012 @ 8:38pm

Re:
That should be the maximum penalty allowed by law, I think.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
ltlw0lf (profile), 22 Feb 2012 @ 9:12pm

Re: Re:
So, a slap on the wrist, and drinks all around?

Unfortunately, you are likely right about this. However I still hope that the maximum punishment will be stripping all legitimate "IP" from the company in question as well as a fine for being a douche.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
HumbleForeigner (profile), 22 Feb 2012 @ 10:33pm

Hmm
Let's see, "flawed understanding of the law" and "historical facts are no one's property". Well, if their lawyers did not understand the historical FACTS part, then they deserve to be disbarred! My understanding of lawyers is that they serve 2 functions; provide sound legal advice to their clients, act as agents of the court. In this case the legal team involved failed on both counts. They failed to recognise that historical facts cannot be owned, and they made baseless legal threats that supposedly had the full weight of the courts behind them.

These lawyers should be disbarred at the very least.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
MahaliaShere (profile), 22 Feb 2012 @ 10:44pm

Response to: Anonymous Coward on Feb 22nd, 2012 @ 8:04pm
Ass-troll-lube
[ link to this | view in thread ]
the real bob, 23 Feb 2012 @ 12:17am

What More PROOF That You Need That Google Is Behind The EFF??
All those skeptical fools who refuse to believe that the EFF is a sock-puppet front for those immoral Intellectual-Property thieves at Google�here is all the PROOF you need!!! After all, who else stands to benefit from freetard Thieving of the valuable Intellectual Property timezone information that Astrolabe invested so much Sweat of the Brow into collecting? Hint: who operates across Multiple Timezones? Google, of course! See--the connection is so Blindingly Obvious, even a CHILD could see it!!!

And what is with all this making fun of Astrologers, just because their Radical Ideas are at odds with Orthodox Science? What happened to Keeping An Open Mind on Important Questions? Who gave Science ownership over reality, anyway? As far as I'm concerned, all you unbelieving anti-faithers can just EFF off!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2012 @ 1:37am

We just need to do away with IP law altogether. Abolish it!!!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Ed C., 23 Feb 2012 @ 1:47am

Re: Re:
Dibs!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Richard (profile), 23 Feb 2012 @ 3:12am

Re: Response to: Anonymous Coward on Feb 22nd, 2012 @ 8:04pm
Now now - we don't want to get banned by the Germans again!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Richard (profile), 23 Feb 2012 @ 3:14am

Education
The MPAA/RIAA are quite right when they say that the problems of copyright will be solved by better education. Of course, as this case demonstrates, they are quite wrong about who needs to be educated and about what.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Michael Kohne, 23 Feb 2012 @ 4:08am

Lawyers...
I don't know too much about the legal profession, but aren't they supposed to tell their clients 'no' when the client asks them to file a clearly improper lawsuit?

There's no edge condition here that they could have been working near - the database is a clear listing of facts and every lawyer should know that such things aren't copyrightable. Shouldn't their lawyers have refused to file the paperwork for them?

Shouldn't there be sanctions on the lawyers for something this egregious?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2012 @ 5:11am

More like them and their lawyers realized they'd suffer punitive damages for bringing such a ridiculous lawsuit to court, including having to pay their opponents legal fees. That's what happens in Europe most of the time.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The Groove Tiger (profile), 23 Feb 2012 @ 5:15am

Re: Re:
NO! We have been pushed around for too long. We will accept nothing less than slaps on BOTH wrists and a few stern words!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The Groove Tiger (profile), 23 Feb 2012 @ 5:17am

Re: What More PROOF That You Need That Google Is Behind The EFF??
Big Search. Get your bob right.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
BentFranklin (profile), 23 Feb 2012 @ 6:07am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
No, it's just a symptom of the real force sending us towards a new Dark Ages: decreasing abundance of energy.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
DannyB (profile), 23 Feb 2012 @ 6:15am

Astrolabe didn't foresee this coming. They lost because the stars just didn't line up correctly.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Hephaestus (profile), 23 Feb 2012 @ 6:37am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Actually, solar cells just popped 85 cents per watt on the down side. In 2-4 years expect them to hit 25c/W. At 50c/W they are cheap enough to do home H2 generation for night time storage.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
DogBreath, 23 Feb 2012 @ 9:07am

Re: What More PROOF That You Need That Google Is Behind The EFF??
After all, who else stands to benefit from freetard Thieving of the valuable Intellectual Property timezone information that Astrolabe invested so much Sweat of the Brow into collecting? Hint: who operates across Multiple Timezones?

So they are going after Dr. WHO and his little dog K-9 too???

Once the MPAA / RIAA figure out that he can travel to the future and bring back out of copyright Public Domain versions of every thing they ever owned (stole from the artists and the public), Dr. WHO will be sued until his TARDIS turns blue... well, a darker shade of blue.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Lord Binky, 23 Feb 2012 @ 10:47am

"We now recognize that historical facts are no one's property" [Our lawyers quit drooling at the suitcase full of gold we gave them and read about the law on wikipedia] "accordingly, are withdrawing our Complaint."[They took their pay and ran]

So... they blame the lawyers for being incompetent for not correcting their obvious misunderstanding of the law. Excellent.

Well, I guess since we can't own these historical facts we should move on. I hear there's some great property in the scientific facts area that is lovely this time of year.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 23 Feb 2012 @ 11:16am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Now if we could just make a car that actually runs as need off those.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 24 Feb 2012 @ 12:39am

Re: What More PROOF That You Need That Google Is Behind The EFF??
Damn. Beat me to it. On the other hand, when you consider the copyright-support drivel that bob's been spewing in threads about trademarks, I won't be surprised if the real "the real bob" goes on this tangent shortly afterwards.
[ link to this | view in thread ]